Onegaishimasu
by Michiro-Chan
Summary: Malnutrition, dehydration, manic recession, paranoia, the works. After glimsping into the mirror after three months of it, Kaiba finds that he can't break the aesthetic of anorexia. But try. And soon. KaibaxJou
1. Golden Tears

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Psychological Distortion

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WARNING: TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOT READ THIS FAN FICTION BEFORE, PLEASE KEEP IN MIND SHOUNEN-AI _IS _PRESENT (JOUNOUCHI/KAIBA), EXPLICIT CONTENT, AND SOME DISTURBING IMAGERY.

Michiro-Chan: I'm sorry I haven't updated for so _loooooong_, everybody!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

There's always room for improvement in writing… (smile) and it's all thanks to people who reviewed this story that I could make this story even better than before! Thank you so much. Clueing me in on how my word choice was too hard to understand at some points really helped me out, and Seto speaks much more in character now.

Anyway, I'll keep updating! Please review if you can!

XXX

"You have everything you could've ever wanted…except for happiness."

XXX

"_Mokuba_, don't worry--s'okay…whatevah it is you're crying 'bout…everything's gonna be all right…"

The blond gazed again compassionately back to the juvenile Kaiba, and an expression of sheer perplexity twisted along his face, noticing the succulent tears swept in the boy's misty eyes. "Mokuba? C'mon, spill. What's up?" he murmured pityingly, beckoning a reassuring palm to the youth's shoulder.

He quaked with his sobs, and jerked his head back to Jounouchi, tortured, wild glimmer in those shimmering, smoke-gray orbs. "Jounouchi, it's--_it's_ a problem with nii-sama…he's…I think he's trying to _kill _himself. I--I don't want him to know I see it. But, I don't understand what's happenin' ta' him anymore…"

The horrified child buried his tear-stained face into Jounouchi's arms. The flaxen-haired teen merely grinned and stroked the lowly boy's dark, glossy hair. "Y'know _why_ your brother would do something like this?" he smiled teasingly toward the younger Kaiba, and lifted his tear-stricken visage by the use of his finger beneath the shorter child's chin. Mokuba always overstated the problem when it came to his brother's concern-there was no good sense in throwing himself into disarray. "Betta' start explainin', kid."

Mokuba's muffled wailing slowly stopped, and he continued speaking in his whispered hysteria, brushing away Jounouchi's comforting hand. "I know he's really hurting inside…but--he started--_he_…he just looks horrible, Jounouchi! I've known him all my life, but ever since the past couple weeks--he looks… he's looked…I didn't think it was possible, but--I think he's--"

Jounouchi's tawny eyes twinkled gallantly. "What is it? Mokuba, just tell me."

"He's--_lately_--"

"What is it then--?"

The black-haired youth sniveled in remorse. "_Jounouchi! _It scares me so much…_he_--nii-sama isn't eating. I don't know why he's not…but, he's just looked really sick. He's always takin' pills for his insomnia--even anti-depressants--and it feels just like a' everyday thing seeing him take those pills with his glass of water. But, I see him take extra a lot. When our doctor subscribes him two a day, he could take ten. 'Few days ago when he overdosed, he wasn't thinking…nii--nii-sama almost threw himself out the window…"

The pre-adolescent's trembling hands were brought up to his quivering, clenching mouth. "When he started missing school to work on a project for the company, his eating patterns started changing. When he overworks, he'll _always_ forget to stop to eat something, 'cuz he'll get so caught up in it all. When I can get nii-sama to come to eat, he'll do it. But now...he leaves the table with a full plate. I've been quiet about it so far. I thought it'd just go away. I thought maybe he was just sad. But it's been weeks now, and I still haven't seen the last time he really ate…nii-sama still won't touch his food at dinner--he just pushes it around his plate like I'm not gonna notice. He says it's just symptoms from his medicine, but--"

Mokuba's thin body shook with his somber words. "It's not just medicine. It's Seto…it's _him, _Jounouchi! He'll work, an' he won't stop! But--_but,_ I don't stop him. I _CAN'T!_ He's scaring me so much, Jounouchi! I tried to take him to the doctors, but nii-sama won't go…I'm terrible--if I really loved him, I would've stopped it a long time ago…I'm horrible! I DESERVE TO _DIE!_ Nii-sama's starving; he doesn't even know what he's doin' to himself--and I don't do a thing…_NOTHING!_"

The pair of amber pools corresponding to Mokuba's darker ones glowed within his bearing, and he shaped his face into a benevolent, lenient exterior. "Mokuba, he's always been a workaholic. I wouldn't be too worried--don't blame yourself for it. Maybe you're taking this too far. I mean, Kaiba could be just doin' something--"

Mokuba violently shook his head, teeming tresses flogging the air with his fierce gesture. "D'you know how much he _weighs, _Jounouchi! DO YOU! _HAVE YA **SEEN **HOW-_-"

"_Whoa, whoa. _Calm down there…just explain. I'm just trying to be positive 'bout this, 'kay?"

"Well, y--_you_ haven't seen how thin he's getting. I didn't wanna believe it either. I _know_ what he's doing--and it scares me so much, Jounouchi--it's as if a _demon's_ possessed him…_just_…I don't know what to do anymore. Jounouchi…it's really short notice, but--please couldja' help me? I know he really doesn't like you or Yuugi that much, but…"

The adolescent's next indication was complete disinterest. "Mokuba, I'd like to help. But how do _I _help a guy that hates me even more than Yuugi? I can't remember having even _one_ civilized conversation with that _mulish, bigheaded-_-" he broke off at the midst of his words, out of pity seeing the dejection displayed on the younger boy's expression. "Thing is…Mokuba, I would only make him feel worse. I'm sorry--hope everything works out for ya--" Jounouchi began walking away, but staggered with a tireless grasp that'd released from his upper arm.

"Jounouchi! If ya don't wanna help nii-sama, then just think of it like a time when you helped your _sister _when she was sick one time…I'm positive if _Shizuka_ was doing what nii-sama was doing, you'd be just as worried as me." Both didn't move for a bit, and an unfathomable current of air whisked aside strands of jet-black hair into Mokuba's teary eyes. "Ya _hafta' _understand how scared I am, Jounouchi. If Shizuka wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating, I know _you'd _be scared to death--you'd never forgive yourself for what happened." Murky, dampened twin pools glimmered sadly. "Ya _gotta_ understand, Jounouchi. Help me."

The blonde's heart throbbed inside his ribcage. It was downright petrifying to even _think_ of his sister like that. Mokuba's moving, uncorrupt words made him realize-that even an inhumane jerk like Kaiba didn't deserve that kind of pain. And neither did his poor brother.

"Get over here, kid…" Jounouchi grinned toothily, ocher eyes glistening with tears. The grade schooler tittered in thanks, and tossed his arms around the adolescent's shoulders, chuckling jovially.

"Thanks a ton, Jounouchi--!"

The teen daubed his eyes out of Mokuba's sight, while the young Kaiba spoke with him briskly--and the response that followed was relaxed. "I'll help you, Mokuba…but, just remember. Your brother _hates_ me, so don't think this is gonna be easy."

"Yep." The raven-haired youth smiled blithely as any child would. "Just talk to him at school, Jounouchi. Ya can come over whenever ya want, too. Don't worry, I'll tell the guards I invited you over, and I'll make sure nii-sama doesn't find out. But--I hafta' go to school right now…" He beamed once more at the one dying second and trotted off, waving his hand enthusiastically back to the fair-haired teen. "Thanks, Jounouchi! I won't forget it!"

The tawny-eyed adolescent heaved out an aggravated sigh after the child had sprinted off. "God, I'm _such_ a pushover--" His mind raced with the heavy thoughts of painstaking conversation with the brunet. "Ah, well. I'll work on it…" and the blond quickly toddled off to Domino high.

XXX

Jounouchi wandered through the common, twisting halls of Domino high, clasping his typical leather expandable file on his shoulder, as he would routinely do on whichever school morning. His eye caught view of a friend. "Good mornin', Yuugi! How you doin? Good?"

The shorter teen smiled toothily. "Definitely, Jounouchi-kun! Did you sleep well?"

Jounouchi grinned feverishly back to his comrade. "Yeah, but--" His gaze grew more grim following the mention of sleep. "Yuugi? 'Bout Kaiba…have ya seen him these past weeks?"

The peculiar-haired adolescent cocked his brow toward this change of discussion, and shook his head. "No--hasn't been to school for a few months, so I haven't seen him around. He's probably working on something big for KaibaCorp like he usually does."

Nodding slowly to this courteous response, the golden-haired youngster settled on dismissively pointing on the situation Mokuba had explained to him earlier. He didn't feel like keeping a secret from Yuugi, but he felt shifty of the CEO's reputation at stake. He knew Yuugi wouldn't tell a soul, but he felt protective for one reason or another. "Uh…well, I was thinking-what if he was doing somethin' else?"

His brow knitted faintly into a good-natured frown. "What d'you mean, Jounouchi-kun--"

The tone of heavy, yet graceful footsteps instantly fixed into his ears, and he joggled his head cagily toward the definite clatter of elaborate dress shoes. "Yuugi, sorry--I'll see ya later. Gotta' go now…bye!" Jounouchi's adept run jostled throughout hordes of weary teens, and the gamer was left in absolute confusion.

"Oh--goodbye, Jounouchi-kun! See ya!" The juvenile heaved out a bubbly sigh at his friend's, at times, strange behavior, and emerged into the corridor.

The blond continued trotting through the halls in search of the brunet, and directly caught vision of Seto's head, far-flung throughout the mass of students, speaking politely with one of the teachers. Knowing it thoughtless to interrupt, he waited for the auburn-haired teen to slowly come his way, and his patience was well paid. The elder Kaiba came his way, and Jounouchi followed valiantly.

"Yo, Kaiba! We need to talk!" he hollered, loudly enough for the dark-haired teenager to stop in his tracks.

"What could you _possibly_ have to confer with me, imbecile?"

Jounouchi clutched him by the hand, ushered him promptly to the restrooms, and locked the door tightly behind them both. "'Kay, Kaiba. Now that we're alone in here…" He warily ensured that none of the many lined stalls had been in use by remaining students, and moaned in relief to find all of them empty. "Okay. I brought ya here to tell you--well, someone told me whatchyou're doing."

The CEO slit his cobalt eyes, and grunted, "What did they tell you? And who?" The boy immediately turned his gaze away from Jounouchi, as if slowly losing the ease to stare directly into the star-studded pair of bizarrely feral, yellowish-brown, twin almonds.

"Let's get it over with…apparently, these past weeks, ya been really screwed up, Kaiba. What's up?"

Silence swept the both of them, and the hostile adolescent groaned irritably, and sunk down to the polished, tiled floor, grasping his hair. Jounouchi kept his glistening eyes centered on the pitiful scene before him. Seto's hair had grown much duller, and thinner strands of hair hung in his eyes, lacking that thick, bulky, lustrous appearance it usually had. His Prussian eyes were much bigger, seeing how his eyelids had become much more taut, and sickly-looking. His hands resembled ailing, pale, coiled spiders, built with long, bony, white legs.

As it always seemed odd seeing Kaiba in school uniform, strangely dwindling his usually thorough shoulders lacking the heavy overcoat and layers beneath; today, his shoulders looked even more lessened than they regularly did, and the usual tight, flattering appearance the uniform generally had on his muscled breasts was hardly visible anymore. His clothes dangled un-tamely along his frame; and his trousers were mere bags along his limbs and hips.

Seto's ashen cheeks were drawn cadaverously into his face, and the withered up epidermis on the teen's face scorned Jounouchi's disbelief. "Nothing's wrong, and as far as _I'm_ concerned, none of this even involves you, so I'm going to insist you not bring this up ever again." He refused to gape into the canine's face openly. He always wondered how he could say such pithy words even when _he_ knew he was dying.

Creases twisted in suspicion at Jounouchi's temples as he viewed Seto. The russet-haired youth actually looked past _excruciatingly _thin in understanding of Mokuba's alarm. It seemed beyond help by now.

"Whatevah you're doing, Kaiba, you're scaring the _hell_ outta' your brother. I talked to the little guy a while ago, and he was crying. _Eh. _Look at me when I'm talking to you." he whispered, eyes grown austere. "If something's actually up, tell me why."

A livid stare returned Jounouchi's curiously sober one. "Get _this _through that thick skull of yours. _Nothing_ is wrong, _none_ of this is your concern, and Mokuba or _whomever_ told you this was clearly mistaken."

The blond scoffed. "Kaiba, listen." He furrowed his golden brows toward the pubescent beneath him, settling beside him calmly. "You're starving yourself, right--?" Jounouchi stared toward him. The brunet wouldn't return the gaze. "And by the _looks_ of it…ya look peaked…but--you're _really_ trying to do this just for yourself? Or is it 'cause of something else--?"

"Don't speak to me." Seto scowled.

The flaxen-haired pubertal laid the palm of his hand beneath the rear of his neck, recognizing his rather rude offense--forefinger playfully pressing down at the one, easily visible knob of bone initiating his spinal column--his palm slowly descended, bringing to his attention his spine growing more indistinct throughout the rest of his nourished structure. Comparing Kaiba to his own situation, he wondered how stomach-turning Kaiba's vertebrae would feel to the touch…his head whirred as he focused his vision again to the other teen,--_Kaiba_ _Seto,_ one of Yuugi's most daunting adversaries, was covering up his thinness with heavy clothing like some kind of insecure, fifteen-year-old girl hiding an eating disorder?

"There is _nothing _wrong with me, and you're both just imagining all of it. There's nothing to agonize about."

Jounouchi withdrew ponderingly. "That tone. You're _lying_." His serene face formed into an expression of sheer shock. "You really don't eat--it's true. Ya don'tsleep, ya work non-stop, ya overdosin'…ya _killing _yourself, Kaiba. Why would _you _be doing this? _You_ of all people…really sucks the hope outta' the rest of civilization--"

The other teen paused, and a struggled glimmer flickered within his typically distant eyes. "So, Mokuba told you then."

Jounouchi frowned. "'Bout what?"

The brunet lowered his gauzy eyelids over his pupils, shooting for an ineffectual intimidation play-act; wrapping stealthy hands around his tiny frame, and tossed in his signal along with an irritated glare. "_He_ told you these lies about me. He even went to the trouble of _crying _over it--"

His genial eyes broadened. "Kaiba, you're picking the wrong time to lie." He lifted an unconcerned hand toward the problem, still only an inexpressive gawp formed on the CEO's bony façade. "Anyway, doesn't matter. If you keep it up, you're gonna starve yourself to death, and you can't allow yourself to die, seeing how ya own Kaiba Corporation and everything…you're not gonna mess up the Kaiba name--you can take care of yourself."

"If anything, I'm barely even _close _to hunger--still, I can see you're the least bit clued-up to understand that I can see to whatever unreal problem I have-- **_myself_**." He began treading his slow path out from the bathroom, but was blocked by a comment that followed his own.

"You _seen _yourself lately? You need a psychiatric specialist or something? Go take a look in the mirror over there, and you might understand what I mean. It's pretty sick, Kaiba." The brunet said nothing in reaction to this. Jounouchi couldn't help but sympathize. "God damn, Kaiba. You must not get any _air_ to your brain when you got an ass 'bout the size of my pinkie finger--"

"Ha. _Funny_ being said from someone who probably weighs _half_ of what I do with the table manners of a wild pig…"

"Ya fuckin' blind? If you took a good look in the mirror during your whole hunger strike, you would've _kept _eating at noticing how you looked like a _damn_--"

"**_Enough_**. Don't get involved with affairs that don't concern you, mutt."

"Kaiba. You're really startin' to piss me off." Jounouchi rutted his brow charily toward the apathetic president of Kaiba Corporation, and plunged a hasty hand into his pocket, lifting and tossing a small, plastic-wrapped package toward the adolescent.

Seto's hands caught hold of the package, and he watched the sack for a moment. He grunted in the slightest. "You carry _Pochy_ in your pockets to school, Jounouchi? Now, I'd have to say _that's_--"

"You didn't eat breakfast, right?"

"It isn't in _your _place to ask me questions, Jou--"

"You either did or didn't, Kaiba. And I'm guessing no, right?" The teenager refused to counter, so the blond continued his encouraging rant. "Anyway, Kaiba. _You_ of all people need some food." He grinned. "Eat now, or I'll get another bag--" The golden-haired adolescent gestured toward another bulge in his pocket, and the taller teen quietly released a harrowed sound.

"Be on top of things with _me_, ignoramus. I'm not going to be told what to do, let alone by someone as stupid as you. I _won't_ play your game, and we're beyond doubt in _not _continuing this stupid conversation. Unlike yourself, I _do_ have places to go, and people to see, so **_move_**." Seto gently shoved out the other pubescent from his pathway, serenely jerking the knob, and heaving against the door, as if expecting it to open like any other but, annoyed to find it wouldn't open, the teen grumbled reproachfully. "Don't tell me this door locks from the outside, you vermin--"

The shorter juvenile beamed, and lifted up a bobby pin toward Kaiba's conception. "Honestly thought I'd let ya out that easy, Kaiba? Now you play by _my_ rules, or ya gonna be _pretty _late for English. An' you got about--_six_ minutes to make it there."

A husky growl escaped the other's desert-like blemishes he called lips. "Jounouchi. I'm not joking around. Release us _now_."

Jounouchi chuckled slightly. "Be my guest and take another one."

A rumble was stifled in the brunet's throat. "Whatever," and the ginger-haired adolescent tore open the package, and poured the flimsy, chocolate-coated sticks into his open mouth, grounding his jowls hotly. "And don't you argue, puppy," he snarled through a mouthful of the delectable treat any toddler would savor. _Chocolate. _After a full twelve weeks, he'd found that the sickly-sweet texture was even more delicious than before--but he didn't take the time to even relish the flavor left on his arid tongue; only savored the sensation of _food_ in his mouth.

Jounouchi's eyes blazed in slight laughter, while observing the annoyed Kaiba fidgeting angrily with the second bag, cheeks still bulbous with the original bulk of food. The blond snorted in amusement. "Kaiba, you're wolfin' it down like you haven't eaten in weeks."

The longer teen narrowed his haggard eyes. "D'you _enjoy_ watching me degrade myself?"

He cracked the misshapen, toothy grin he usually did--with those pillow-y, beautiful lips Seto loathed for one reason or another. "S'only getting harder for me to dream up a time when people feel happy with themselves for who they are. And it only gets worse with our generation. Sometimes, it gets yourself down hearing people say those things and, other times, it just gets you feeling sorry for them. You can't cover it up with an act…'cause, inside, you know that you're really not happy with whatchya got."

He growled, and with great effort, slowly swallowed the horde of sugary nourishment. "Spare me the life lecture. Figures the only reason you decided to _harass_ me this morning was because of your sad excuse for a conscience."

"_That_ what ya call the thanks I get for trying to help you!" the boy's fists trembled.

"You want me to _thank _you when I didn't even _ask_ forhelp?"

"Whatevah, Kaiba. You need to get it through that oversized head of yours that everyone needs help once in awhile."

"Well I'm not, as you put it, 'everyone.' So, I'd put that idea down to rest if I were you."

"You're such an _idiot, _Kaiba. You think you're so great with your brains and everything, but you don't even notice it--even with your smarts and your machines, you're still completely dead to the world--you're still completely _ignorant_. Why can't you see that that _exact_ personality is the reason you got this way--!"

"Enough. You have _no_ right to criticize me, Jounouchi. I'm not taking anymore of this--"

"Well, if you're gonna go--just remember to _try_ to keep the food down, 'kay? If you do...ya develop a lot of problems if ya do that too much." The teen strode toward the door yet again, but was stopped by a hasty hand grasping his shoulder.

The pup's eyes showed forceful concern. "Don't you _dare_ patronize me, mutt…I'm _well_ aware of what kind of problems--"

"OKAY! _Damn_…Christ, man, you act like a total prick sometimes." His sandy-haired brows knitted slowly together. "Ya think that you got a right to push people around--and not accept people's help even when _you_ know you need it. An' ya act like you don't have compassion and pity for others 'cause of it. But, everyone's got good feelings, Kaiba. And it seems that you deprived yourself of showing those things. And in any case…it doesn't give you the right to treat people like you do…"

"Really now? Then I assume you can come up with an explanation as to why _this_ is happening--"

The youth tossed off the group of bronzed fingers placidly clasped at his shoulder blade, and trotted off once more toward the exit that Jounouchi was making gallingly far at this point.

"Hey-! _Wait,_ ya friggin'--" the leucous adolescent swat out his forearm toward the CEO, accidentally brushing his waggish reach against the youth's shoulder blade.

Seto immediately stopped. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?"

Jounouchi pulled back his hand frantically, as if his unplanned assault was lethal to the mind. "Kaiba, I didn't mean to--I mean…aw, _shit_. I mean--I know something that could help you. Can ya _stop _being a prick and _let_ me help?"

"I don't need help, because there is no problem--and _had_ I a crisis at my hands, I wouldn't go to _you_ of all people for help."

The fair-haired teen approached him carefully, and placed a wary hand upon the brunet's bosom. For a peculiar reason, the other adolescent, never open to being touched by others, found himself tongue-tied, motionless, and staggered in the movement of his timid escape.

"Jounouchi? What are you doing? Don't--"

"I'm…I'm…I don't--you--" The blond hesitated for a moment, glimmer of contained temptation within his eyes.

He watched Seto's eyes. Beneath its reserved outward show, his eyes looked hungry as hell. Blood-shot, sunken, pleading to its most insightful onlooker--despite what his brain was telling him--to _feed _the cadaver he ironically called a body.

At snail's pace, he moved reluctant, yet nimble fingertips to the CEO's pointed chin, quickly tipping down the slender visage toward his own broader complexion, and letting both supple lips meet, and bond evermore. Seto's pupils winced at this prompt abuse, but he found himself, giving in to what he realized he was--_frightfully_--enjoying.

Jounouchi continued grazing his mingling tongue within Kaiba's rather callow one. At once, he pulled back his locked lips from the other's as he instantly recognized what he'd just been doing-a single thread of sodden saliva laced from both mouths; exposing itself as lustrously as sequin beneath the fluorescent-lighting. Finally thrusting back entirely from the confounded CEO, the thread of excess slaver quickly nipped at Jounouchi's dithering drawback.

"**_Vermin_**--what the hell was that?" the auburn-haired teenager murmured.

The blond stopped any further misuse, hands promptly seizing his now-throbbing temples. "I…I don't know. What tha' _fuck-_-?" His tawny, flustered eyes cast back to the condescending face of Kaiba Seto. "I--I don't know what the hell got into me. But…but, you didn't resist? Does that--"

Those glistening, cerulean orbs quickly hardened, now undeniably realizing his wrongdoing. "I won't even say anything. Obviously, you don't have the capacity to help anyone but **_yourself_**. I have to get to class--"

And the stuck-up adolescent brandished a pin from his own pocket, and within seconds-picked the lock himself. As the door swerved shut with a hard shove, Jounouchi was left staggered onto the ground. "Wh--wha jus' happened?" A slender, golden brow creased over his left eye. "_Why? _Did he actually _want _that…?"

XXX

Michiro-Chan: Dammit. I can't stand this chapter. It makes me twitch every single time I read it, because it seems so damn _mediocre._ This chapter is dated about originally two years old, and has been lightly edited over that time frame. I'm feeling like the only time I can get Kaiba to be even remotely in-character are in the flashbacks. VV0 Ah well, I suppose I must deal with my incompetence...review, please.


	2. Precious Things

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Lucrative Contemplation

Michiro-Chan: I have difficulty getting to the point when it comes to my writing…I hope this looks a bit less scary from last time you may have read it. For people reading it for the first time, I hope you like it. Try to review this story if you like it--or even if you hate it--and be critical with your answer. Don't be too wishy-washy about it…I _like_ hearing about what slip-ups I made in my writing, so I don't make the same mistakes again. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

XXX

"I walked into your dream, and now I've forgotten how to dream my own dream. You're the clever one, now, aren't you?"

XXX

His return home was the quickest thing among the tangled traffic of disturbed vehicles and insensible pedestrians. In fact, because of his little "encounter" with Jounouchi, he'd exchanged his slippers for his outdoor shoes and _raced_ through the secondary school's double shouji doors immediately following his chat with the blond, with no further concern for his "English" period--or any other class for that matter. An excess adrenaline resting upon his trembling lips from what they'd just experienced.

Astoundingly enough, he'd never "swapped spit" with _anyone_, let alone one of the same gender-and what'd been most amazing was the ecstasy he'd received from it, and his disgraceful longing for another similar feeling. Then again, he remembered sharing a kiss with a certain someone of the same gender before…it had been his first kiss. His only kiss. True love's first kiss…not a strained one from his late adoptive father's avaricious little mouth. But, that man--he _doubted_ he still returned the feelings, and they'd fallen apart long ago.

It made no sense. Emotion had always been his foe, yet…he desired another explosion of delight like when grazing tongues with that pathetic excuse for a human. Disgusting.

The CEO's rapid pace continued onward to his home again, winded by the full five miles spent exchanging thrusts against tattered asphalt from his simmering limbs. Welcomed past luxurious, elegant fencing without question after grunting into a rather gaudy intercom, the brunet shot several glares toward curious security guards, evidently implying the words, "Don't say anything." He left to his bedroom in haste, hurriedly locking himself up in a recently scrubbed private bathroom, still very scarce in breath.

"Dammit…damned dog! Could it be possible I feel _lust_ for that idiot? He--_he_…" The teen gradually approached his reflection shown within the mirror above the sink. Thoughts began pouring into his mind. 'Mokuba mentioned it to Jounouchi. Does that mean he knows what I've been doing this whole time? I--I tried to hide it…I _can't _let him make sure of it…which reminds me--'

Seto allowed both hands to rest along either portion of marble beside the glimmering hilts of the sink faucet, and he scowled back to an unsatisfied view. 'Hn. My health's failing as it is, but I'm _still _not getting any results.'

He brandished a sallow hand to his mouth, and slipped a glaringly lean forefinger past the front of his jaw. 'I can't let Jounouchi get away with that. I can't bear this--' The tepid substance finally cast out from his trembling stomach the short while his fingertip had come into contact overwhelmingly past a bulbous uvula, and the dark substance was too soon flushed out from his gaping mouth. With this done, the teen erratically reached for the faucet knob and washed his paling countenance in icy water.

The boy collapsed into a crumpled heap along the wall again, still fatigued from his earlier run. 'Does Mokuba know about this? If I keep working, I'm sure he'll think I'm just too busy to come to dinner. Right? Dammit, this is getting out of control…' A brittle palm kissed his quivering brow. Teeming sweat formed along his hand. 'I can't concentrate anymore--knowing it's bound to get to Mokuba at one point. _Shit_--I can't make myself stop this. I worked so _intensely _for all of it. My metabolism's getting slow, though. If Mokuba gets me to eat even a little bit and I vomit later, my body responds to it. _Fuck_.'

Kaiba released a sigh, and began unbuttoning his roomy seifuku. 'I can't sleep. Every night, it's the same. Going to bed--_those Goddamn pills_…I can't sleep if I can't rush off to the bathroom at least twice to make sure I've gotten rid of all the _crap_ inside me…it's getting out of hand. I've lost control of this disorder, and the medicine isn't going to help.'

He hissed at the thought of his ordeal. 'I don't want this. I'm fucking sick of this. But, it's the only thing that's ever filled these empty insides. Even more than Kaiba Corporation. It's the only thing I've everbeen happy with in this barren_ hellhole _I call "life"--I need anorexia.'

He slid off his uniform jacket from his arms, hoping he'd slowly cool down from his fitfully overheated, poorly adjusted, bodily thermostat. Ever since he'd actually began thinning up, his body poorly adjusted to extreme warmth or extreme cold. In the sun, he'd sweat to no end, and sunstroke was at all times a strong possibility. In the wind, every part of him would be shaking--his entire body would practically collapse, seeing as it no longer had resistance to these conditions. But losing thirty-nine pounds in less than two months really does have a tendency to fuck up somebody's body in general.

In drowsy retirement, his spine slothfully lolled against distastefully cold linoleum. A tremble ran through his hand. His insecurity had almost grown a life of its own after time.

On the inside, it was almost like his younger years, being beaten by Gouzaburou. A figure of lost innocence, just like that--secluded in the soul room…with no escape…with no filling nourishment of love or indulgence. Sedated and trembling in his eternal sleep.

Slowly, Seto noticed he was beginning to grow like that inner figure. But the inner, untainted Seto didn't _want_ to look the way he did. He wanted to love again, to smile, and to laugh. Leading the blissful life he once had during his early childhood--_before_ Gouzaburou, _before_ the orphanage, _before _his father passed away. Even contemplating life before his mother died, sometimes. How _would _life be without Mokuba? He'd still have his mother…then again; it was difficult to think about.

He lounged back onto the floor listlessly, and positioned clasped hands mildly onto his stomach. A pang of self-consciousness cast along his fingers, and he moved his arms onto the ground instead. 'When's the last time I've smiled? Ha. Stupid question…' Veiled, russet lashes closed, but wagged toward an unease he'd been contemplating. 'It's almost strange to think about it again. I remember a passion I used to have at that age--a will to survive; that recently, I've clearly lost. It hurts to think about now, but I almost feel nostalgic for that childish endurance. That driven desire to carry on breathing just for Mokuba; able to do _so_ much for such a small, incapable boy of thirteen…'

XXX

_"Dammit...hurts more than usual_--_"_

The quivering adolescent allowed his gaze to cast along the cheerless picture before him. He let off a quick tremor along his spine, and his whitish lips curled into a struggled grin. 'Hn. A little boy trapped in the ill hands of fate--_forgotten and broken…like a child growing out a toy. I'm just an orphan…doing everything unnoticed by everyone else's parents. I don't understand any of this anymore_--_'_

A large breath escaped his nostrils, and the brunet shook in pain while slithering out from his blood-spattered shirt. The thick cloth wrung within his trembling hands, sopping and heavy with full absorption of blood; he gave his hips a quick, careful wriggle, and slipped down his tiny, tattered, denim jeans along his bruise-dappled thighs, heaving out a small gasp when the frayed seam had grazed one of his deeper gashes. "**Shit**…"

Kaiba Seto had, yet again, been given another full-scale assault from his adoptive father, and fully accustomed to the dreary process, he'd agreed on bathing first, and patching up afterwards. Mokuba was somewhere else, and he didn't want to pour concern onto the child owing to a paltry raid from a stingy Gouzaburou. The pre-adolescent was actually relieved he hadn't passed out this time from the thrashing, then again--_fixing a hostile stare back to his gruesome reflection, he rethought the disturbing circumstances._

Suicide was beginning to look like platinum, but he knew he couldn't leave his brother with the pathetic excuse for a parent. He'd been thankful that he'd enough energy to hobble to the bathroom this time. He normally wasted away the remains of the day lifeless, or was confined to bed, unveiling faultfinding eyes to fluorescent lighting within hours, not even the least healed.

The demanding cycle of trotting off to school morning time in a plainly agitated or lethargic manner as a toll to unattended wounds--_going to his classes, one by one, dreading the walk home again to school homework and long-lasting tutorials-_-_compliments of Gouzaburou's monthly-disbursed, home professors-_-_then welcoming the fiery greeting of his father's entrance home, usually being drawn out black-mail, frightening discipline, ungracious protest to Seto's "laziness," or fierce, hand-clouting and weapon-smacking_--_always shut up together in a private room, where he could have peace-_-_to fritter away the rest of the night in pain beyond words, with another day before him_…_the routine was beginning to show sickening effects on his body._

A waterless tongue carried out its utmost to moisten his uncomfortably dry mouth as he mulled the situation over.

He noticed that because of the lingering lessons with his tutors, trying errands, and the endless lashings, he was not having the time to eat like he used to. It wasn't the problem of him not wanting to eat. He dreamt of feasts whenever he spent nights bedridden to hard beatings--_the only time he actually had bits of food in his mouth was lunchtime during school hours. Because of the overwhelming labor he was forced to do on a daily basis, Gouzaburou didn't allow him to eat anything until all work was completed and usually after a good whipping when the boy would have already lost his appetite from the pain._

The cold child was becoming nerve-racked by this unbroken hunger and incessant emotional sickness, and to his equally ill luck, the brassy requiem of his miserable, very hungry stomach was beginning to disrupt classes. It was pitiful seeing that heartrending expression that could have very well passed for one of an infant dwelling in an internment camp…clinging so bleakly onto the malicious barricade of barbed wire, yearning refuge from their prison--

__

"Oh, Kaiba-kun, have you been eating well enough?"

"Mr. Kaiba, you always come to school with a bruised face…would you care to explain to us about anything or anyone that's doing this to you?"

"Are you growing ill, Seto-sama? You don't look as healthy as you used to--_you look so pale…"_

It was always the same as yesterday. His teachers would grimace, and not mention the matter freely, while those that mustered the courage to do so would be ignored or demurred by the boy.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just didn't have breakfast…"

"These bruises aren't a big deal. Just accidents or getting hurt in PE."

"It's just the accelerated extra school program I have at home…it's hectic, of course…but it's nothing to worry about."

But, he always overheard the teachers' panicked tones while gossiping amongst themselves--

"Have you seen how **thin** he's gotten over the past year--! It's not normal! I think his father isn't letting him eat."

"He's come almost everyday with some kind of injury...you don't suppose it could be...?"

"Are you sure it's his father we should blame? What if it's Kaiba-kun doing this to himself--?"

Semesterly physicals directly following his venture into middle school were utter nightmares for the youngster. He often found himself scribbling out forged excuses, frittering extended lengths of time of self-confinement to the school bathrooms, and even playing outright truants. If the nurse saw all the scars…the half-healed wounds…there would be one hell of a national stick the instant it'd be recorded into his physical profile and word would get round that the golden boy was sodomized daily by a mysterious somebody--the first suspect likely to be his masochistic self.

__

Likewise, Seto certainly didn't take the time to notice it with all his studying up, but as the schoolboys of his grade were experiencing the time-honored weight gain and growth-spurt of adolescence, pinch-to-grow-an-inch or not, his height wasn't budging and his weight was lingering at death's door with a set of primed knuckles pending the final hard-knock. And it still went down.

In sixth grade, he wasn't even half as miserable: more timid than reserved, admittedly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed even without the silly, grade-schooler smiles, slim rather than gaunt, rosy-cheeked, ruddy-lipped, a lad full of pride and life decked out in his well-groomed school uniform. Now, he resembled a drowsy-eyed, weary handbag of bones hovering around in an insomniac's hell. All life was drained out from him by that tyrant. Maybe it was the rape that did it.

He remembered throwing off his undershirt one of those luckless afternoons, being gawked at by his male classmates without end, as if he'd somehow uncovered a hidden, third leg. What he had _uncovered was about a torso's worth of nightly abuse by unclean hands, the exposure of distended tendons, and a diseased sum of very nearly transparent, knotty bones--all of which wove in a disturbing macramé along a snowy, decrepit chest and ashy back. It wasn't abnormal to be scrawny, but this was just _awful_.It wasn't at a point where you could count ribs quite yet...but it was certainly getting there._

It was a rather difficult-to-get-on-with lifestyle, but Seto knew he could cope with it. He was strong. He knew that emotion wouldn't help him out of the mess, so he cast aside all compassion, suppressed all nostalgia, and hid his deep pain. Instead, materialistic and academic lust, and the few minutes with his brother every week seemed to be a new interim tonic to this disease of which there existed no cure. It was small, but it was enough to keep him waking up everyday. Just a toothy grin from Mokuba would give him strength enough for another week of the atrocities…the loneliness…and misery. Everything he did was for Mokuba.

The azure-eyed martyr of infidelity stirred the murky contents of the bathtub with an unsteady hand, and allowed the meshed reek of foul blood and overwhelming fragrances to tingle his senses.

'Hopefully, this washes all the cuts out. Ha. Pouring hot water all over open cuts-_what is my life coming to? Still_--_' His brows puckered slightly. 'I hate blood. I hate the smell…the look of it…the taste.'_

He remembered being at the age of late two, bashing his fragile, tiny knee forcefully against a shabby column of a cinder play structure, and shrieking at the rare glimpse of it.

"AHH! Otousan! Something's happened to my leg!" A violent clatter tore through the quiet of contentedly playing children, following with thick, throaty sobs. "Otousan!"

The apprehensive father sprinted to his frenzied son's rescue, greeted with a tight, fickle embrace.

"Seto…tell me, what is it?" His deep, calm tone failed in relaxing the toddler into restored composure. The infant seldom cried--_he knew it from early experience with the child_-_so his nervousness was great._

"Otousan, I'm dying…" his son whispered huskily, tightening his arm's clasp around his father's neck. Succulent, tepid tears trickled along the boy's full, dimpled cheeks, and his posture grew stiff, only injured limb throbbing violently.

His father's warm gaze shifted to the ripe wound, lips tilting into a crooked smile. "Seto, it's okay now. You won't die…it'll be all right…" A smothered chuckle was heard from the male, as he gently pulled his beloved child closer to his frame. He fondled the toddler's auburn locks, and bolstered the boy. "It's only blood…you're going to be fine…we'll wash it all off when we get home, okay?"

"What is it he's crying about? Are you all right, Seto?" The peal of an alarmed woman's voice immediately led the teary-eyed infant to jerk around heartily toward his mother. He quivered fearfully.

"Okaasan, will the blood wash off? Are you sure it won't stay there forever?" he twittered, plump, childish fists lifted up to his chin somewhat musingly.

She beamed angelically, and cupped his wet cheek. "You can always wash the blood off, Seto…" A single, limber finger tipped his disheartened complexion up toward the sunlight. "You just can't be afraid of it, Seto--_you can't be afraid…"_

He never did find out whether that was a metaphor or mere coincidence.

Of course, the near-fourteen-year-old Kaiba would never allow the thought of himself wailing like a toddler to even reach his mind--_so, from time to time, whenever he caught a glimpse of the fire-engine red liquid surging out in pints from a battered limb-_-_the few contents of his stomach would stir up like some type of demented self-implanted blender, and at times, the swill would be flushed out from his pale lips as fresh vomit…if he ever dared maintaining his gaze toward the crimson elixir of mortal life._

As a result, the nauseating brew of blood, sweat, tears, semen, sperm, partly digested food, et cetera would spread all over the teen's well-kempt seifuku, well known for making a very disgruntled Gouzaburou. So every now and then he'd find himself scowling at the penalty of scrubbing down the uniform by hand himself. **Squeamish**--it was a funny word…but it certainly described the way he was acting.

The russet-haired pre-adolescent hissed at the pang of searing water meeting new gashes, but continued plunging his body down into the roomy tub, cunning movement giving his torso less agonizing entrance into the roasting liquid.

Heaving up a rickety ankle to his Prussian gape, he inspected the member with little care, and released his calve with a deep groan. Flexing raspingly, Seto recoiled at disclosing the wild unearthing of his once untouched, porcelain sphincter now tattered down to the very seam. 'If Mokuba sees me lowered to this, he'll be in hysterics even **I** can't help. What else is there to do…but wait--_?' He lowered both sets of dark lashes along his pupils. 'Until Gouzaburou goes to **hell **where he's always belonged. Feh. Life started out perfectly when he first dragged me to this mansion. Pampering me, stuffing me with only the best food, spoiling me…no school or draining extra classes. Any regular child's fantasy,_--_but when you adopted me, I wasn't a child anymore.'_

His eyes grew wistful. 'I turned the tables around…and would've chosen death over exchanging bodies with your apology for a son. It pisses the hell out of me just thinking about it. Coddling me for your fucking son's revival.

'You're not as stupid as you look though, I suppose. You knew from the start I was better for the job, so you pretended to ignore everything and blamed me for your own son's failure, while pushing **me **through my limits. And now--you **beat **me; you **rape **me; you **starve** me; and you've worked me for hours with this meaningless cram school. All of it fucking sucks. I'd probably be better-off--psychologically **and** physically--living in that orphanage with nothing again. You've turned me into a fucking bigot. But I can't…I'm never going to let you drag me off to that decrepit hellhole.'

Seto tried to suppress upcoming tears with the heel of his hand. '…I have to conquer you, Gouzaburou. I can't die now. I absolutely **loathe** hypocrites like you, and have enough resilience in me against this living **hell** that'll last me onto your death. You know I'm stronger than you'll ever be, and this petty orphan will do more than your fucking **son** ever could've dreamed of doing.' He managed to smirk through waterlogged eyes. 'You convinced me for so long that I was weak and stupid. Not able to keep up with this torment. I've forgotten happiness, forgotten how to love, and I've learned hate, pitilessness, and I've been manipulated to the point that I've almost been robbed of my pride. Your plot was genius--_foolproof_--**_faultless_**. But, you overlooked one mistake in your plan, Gouzaburou--_' Seto narrowed his eyes. 'You chose me for the pawn and for that, I won't lose. It'll cost you your life, bastard.'_

His beaten, crushed hands curled into fists after these beastly words had been washed out from his pulsing insides. And, sadly, every word of it was true.

About three years ago, first ushered into the Gouzaburou home, Seto had attended school as an antagonistic, more distant child, but by and large, he had been the hackneyed dour, blunt little boy his colleagues expected as much, well-known for his seat at the Kaiba mansion. His instructors would merely laugh at his unusual behavior, and always approved of his scholarly, diligent practices in the classroom. But, two years later, his teachers noticed his test scores plunge beyond even prodigal, and his health only collapse.

Facial appearance once a nourished paleness, grew an anemic gray, while his hair became dowdy and lifeless, gentle eyes reflecting only less brightness, growing much more steely and icy, while his growth was only neglected, effect of the little nutrition he received. The boy's words became only shrewder, while his behavior became illegible, more wayward, and even standoffish at times. The usually washed-out, white face piebald with contusions that greeted each one of his teachers every morning so scathingly left panic in their minds--_sound reasoning as to why he always had such a tattered, exhausted appearance attending classes. Obviously, he was hiding something. But, as firmly as they questioned him, Seto refused to give them an honest response. They'd given up after months of investigation, so their anxiety with the preteen's home-life was cast aside._

Time had reared its ugly head, and Seto's near future was only having a grimmer result. He tried building castles in the sky; the precious flicker of childishness at rest in his mind--_still remembering the joy of still gazing into the divine face of ignorance; unaware of the world around him-_-_still wriggling within the shelter of his non-existent womb…where he would ease beneath clean sheets. Untouched, once again._

It harked back to the memory of an article he'd glimpsed in on Egyptology mentioning the god of chaos, Set, tearing himself from the womb before birth out of impatience. Born too early, thus making him intolerant, impulsive, somewhat childish, and one of the more loathsome Egyptian gods. Just like that. Seto hadn't known entering the brink of adulthood too soon would bid him a rude awakening to the cruel, child-unfriendly, real world--_not that he had much choice, anyway._

He was growing more listless with his younger brother, too. It seemed like their love was being torn at the seam with the little time Seto had to giggle again babyishly with the raven-haired boy. Seto was slowly forgetting how to laugh or how to smile. It all seemed like a recollection shut away in the inner-sanctity of his mind, wherein he'd lost the key to the shabby, mahogany door to happiness, and no longer had intentions to penetrate the realm--_in slight fear of what its inner recesses held after all his vagrant years._

He finally cleared off all the blood from his disgruntled body and let off a shaky breath treading out from the water--_knees clanking in quick tuning from warmth. The child embraced his cold body with trembling arms, in hysterical delving for the nearest towel within his reach. Chocolate tresses thoroughly soaked down with water, his colorless expression was framed by the cluttered strands of curly hair, even his brows dewy with his just done bath. It looked almost_--_too cute to relate in anyway with the uncaring thirteen-year-old._

"Ah…damn thing…" The murmur was not thinly bitter, as he was shaking to a point he couldn't sound threatening anymore. The adolescent successfully caught hold of the textile, and toweled off his scarred limbs with the cloth rather frowningly. "…Mokuba." He mused the suggestion. 'Gouzaburou's finished with me for today. I'm guessing the idiot's thinking I'm passed out, so I'll visit him today…sneaking out of this room and escaping to Mokuba's room without getting caught, of course, but--_' He tilted down his head and ruffled the towel along his dark mane. 'I wish I could see him more_--_then, I guess I can't say anything. I gotta go now, so…'_

Seto slipped into the set of pressed, washed clothing he'd set aside earlier, and gawked into the looking glass one last time. Wishing for inhibition of his drowsy exterior, although the heavenly-white, gold-trimmed attire seemed to bulk up the brittle frame he knew Mokuba would panic toward, the little show of his hands and face were terrible. He remembered his younger brother easily falling into a frenzy of frantic pity tracing even a single bruise on the minor's wrist. Seto sighed. He knew he wasn't going to pass up the privilege of visiting his brother, so he'd cope with the troubled, sharp apologies. It was always worth it.

"Mattero, Mokuba."

XXX

It had been hours that Seto mulled over this in the isolation of his private bathroom; expression changing from wide-eyed, trembling and drained of all healthful color; from knitted, gingery brows sculpting cruelly along nippy twin crystals, and filmy lips turned down into a deep glare; to a baffled, gaping, horrified posture. The child he once was had been unkind, but had a drive to life. Now, it seemed like that ember of rage in the drive for survival had smoldered to a softer glow than candlelight.

"Have I lost it--?" A scowl swept his handsome, yet skeletal face. 'No, I'm _not_ suicidal--' The determination fixed on his expression quickly weakened. 'Heh. Why do I feel forced to keep lying to myself again and again? Why do I have to lie to myself in hopes that I'll get rid of the nightmare that's already died? Gouzaburou died a while ago, but it hasn't stopped haunting me--it's too late to sulk or regret everything that's in the past. For now…I know I can't abandon Mokuba. I _won't_--'

XXX

Michiro-Chan: I make Seto go through _SO_ much torture in this fan fiction…it makes me feel so sorry for him, but then I come to the realization that…wait, wasn't **_I_** the one who wrote this? 0 Anyway, try to review if you can, and thank you in advance for people who've already done it.


	3. Remembrance

__

Remembrance

Michiro-Chan: Those who've already reviewed: I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART! This story is _so_ OOC. Kaiba's questioning his pride locked alone in the bathroom; Mokuba's hysterical and has gone to _Jounouchi_ (!) for help; and Jounouchi is recovering from the trauma of _frenching_ Kaiba! It's about to get _very_ out-of-character; to the point I could find that _Kazuki Takahashi _might press charges. Be my guest, and send complaints in your reviews. But compliments are always nice too. Thank you!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

XXX

"When I look in your eyes, there's nothing there to see…nothing but my own mistakes staring back at me."

XXX

Clear sound of any noise beyond the room was immediately shut off from his earshot. Numbness instantly spread through his legs first, following his entire body--along with a tingling sensation toward the tips of his nerves. The loudest sound inside his ears was now only the eager throbbing of his heart. Heavy sweat rushed from his pores after this tiring seizure, and his vision began hazing agonizingly. Next, it was the fatigue. Finally, surprisingly on schedule, he could check off the inevitable "I feel too limp to stand anymore" from the to-do list.

The brunet's eyes pinched shut. "Oh God, I'm dehydrated again--" he could barely hear himself murmur the words. Only that one pulse, and that taunting, piercing tone in the back of his mind. Cold sweat trickled along his face. He was going to pass out again…

Seto managed, in his vibration and deadness in his nerves, to slip his clothing back on, but struggled to his feet. Dizziness seized him at the moment, not allowing him to proceed. Listlessly clearing up again, his eyesight allowed him further passage. His head swayed at the intense nausea he was suffering. Room spiraling as he narrowly escaped through the door of his bathroom, he collapsed onto his open four-poster, lilied-canopy, majestic bed, heaving in scarce breaths.

It'd happened more times than he could have remembered. And with each one, Mokuba always made the frantic telephone call to the family doctor, demanding emergency service at once. The last thing the CEO needed was another visit from that provocative physician, only to spell out upsetting news to his younger brother that he was going to die. He didn't want to clarify this slow, but sure, deteriorating physical condition to his little sibling. Mokuba was intuitive as it was, but Seto had been sure beforehand that the lesser Kaiba was entirely aware of this confusion.

"Listen to me, Mokuba-sama…your brother is _anorexic_. And if you don't do anything soon to help his condition, he's only going to _die _quicker--"

"**_YOU LIAR! _**MY BIG BROTHER **ISN'T! **HE'S **NOT!** **HE'S NOT**--** AND HE'S ****NOT** GOING TO DIE! **NO!** STOP TELLING ME ALL THESE LIES! NII-SAMA WOULD **NEVER** HAVE AN EATING DISORDER!"

"Mokuba, please--if you'll just _listen-_-"

"**_LEAVE! _**IF YOU'RE JUST GONNA TELL LIES ABOUT MY BIG BROTHER, THEN **LEAVE NOW!**"

"Mokuba, his symptoms have already been clinically proven; _denying_ it isn't going to help Mr. Kaiba…"

"**_LEAVE! _**I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS!"

"D'you _know_ how much your brother weighs, Mokuba? D'you _see_ the profuse hair on his arms and legs? His vulnerability to coldness and heat? _Look_ at his cholesterol and glucose levels--"

"_STATISTICS AREN'T GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING! **SETO'S FINE! **HE'S **FINE**_--**SO ****DON'T** TRY TO TELL ME HE'S SICK! He's--_fine_. Seto's fine…he's--_he's_ just gotten a little skinny. What do _you_ know about him, anyway! H--he's just gotten a little sick from overworking like he always does…it's _no-_-_thing_…he's f--fine. _It's nothing at all_--everything's gonna get better, like it always does…nothin's wrong."

The periodic, "Please don't take this the wrong way--but can you please stop whatever diet you're on, nii-sama?" from the troubled, sable-haired boy had always been hushed by his cold frown of disapproval. Now, he never heard Mokuba mention it again, but knew his little brother meant it now in particular by means of the wounded glimmer the child held in his eyes. Both brothers knew each other only too well to not see when one had a concern for the other. By chance, treading past his younger sibling, he'd notice a thorough observation from the pre-teen with those grayish orbs, and would watch Mokuba cock his head back as he always did when looking toward his only kindred in the face. Eventually, both would have discussion with only use of their eyes.

Seto made out by the looks he'd been receiving recently, Mokuba intended something along the lines of, "I think I know whatchya've been doing to yourself. Nii-sama, couldja tell me why you're doing it?" Seto could almost _hear_ poor Moki stammering through that question. Of course, his well mannered, powerless, innocuous, little brother would neverdareask a question like that aloud.

Slowly, Seto began to feel his dehydration leave and with it, his body felt exhausted. Stunning, Prussian eyes gradually closed. He released a long sigh. "May as well work. Better way to pass the time--"

The teenage CEO rose to his feet and strolled off to his headquarters lethargically.

XXX

"Jounouchi-kun? Are you all right? You seem quiet."

The blond quickly shook his head back to reality once again and gazed back toward his tiny comrade. "No--yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking 'bout…stuff." His eyes had been unintentionally riveted toward a passing semi-truck.

Yuugi's spacious, violet eyes narrowed slightly. "Well, I guess if you say so--" He was a bit apprehensive with the situation that happened earlier in the day.

"Yeah, exactly where were you at lunch? You just left the classroom without a word--and _don't_ try to say you weren't hungry; you know that won't work with us. We know you only _too_ well to believe that lie." Mazaki Anzu moved in step with Jounouchi and Yuugi, soft expression fairly teasing.

Honda Hiroto's long countenance showed true concern. He noticed immediately that his friend had something on his mind. "Ya sure you're all right? I mean, we care about you Jounouchi; that's why we're asking. Don't hesitate to talk about it with us."

The amber-eyed adolescent nibbled his lower lip neighboring these words of comfort, a small force within him urging to reveal it. And that _kiss_… "Well--it's nothin', you guys. Forgetta' 'bout it. Ya don't hafta' worry, so let's just get on with life…" He knew the consequences of revealing Seto's secret. So Jounouchi's pace accelerated, with the usual, casual stance of his expandable file slung over his slackened shoulder.

He'd made a pledge to Mokuba. He knew he _had_ to come to the Kaiba mansion--but something was holding him back from going calmly. He didn't _want_ to go, actually. A playful unease jolted inside his stomach. The "five W's" were rushing through that seldom-used brain of his. Just _who_ was Kaiba to actually return that kiss Jounouchi gave him? _Why_ did a sudden fear come across him? _What _had happened to that hotheaded, fearless Jounouchi never self-doubting to berating that self-important CEO? Was it because of the "discussion" he had with Kaiba? _Where_ and _when_ was he going to be allowed to meet with the brunet again and fuck him senseless? And _how _had Kaiba Seto shown actual _lust_ to another human being, let alone one he hated?

Which pressed another issue on him…did he actually _like_ the guy--or the saliva he got from him? And now he was unsure of his sexuality. Too much had happened all in less than one day.

The crotch region of his trousers stiffened at these thoughts. A subtle moan surfaced his mouth, but the regular clamor of urban home-life hid the sound. Jounouchi flushed at this unpleasant phenomena, and made his exit away from his three friends as quick as possible. "Um…guys, I gotta' go--I'll see ya tomorrow! _Damn-_-" With an abrupt wave of his hand, he trotted off continuing to curse beneath his breath.

"Uh-well…bye, Jounouchi-kun!"

"See ya, Jounouchi!"

"What's he running off for--?"

XXX

The CEO's stony gaze cast aside from his heavily gloved hands skillfully arranging hundreds of twisting, entangled, diversely-colored cables into various, uncountable sockets only a gifted technician could know with where to put what. He paused for a moment, then grunted toward his insightful motion back, next to his contraption again, sunken, azure eyes growing rather weary. The spacious, mucky lab was where all Seto's dreams took true form--although the condition of the laboratory was worn-down and sultry to the point one's throat would feel clogged-up with the milieu, it had always been a room of fondness to the teen in his elegant mansion.

Rust veiling cinder walls, scraps of both welted and coiled metal resting in heaps, all scattered along filthy, concrete floors like dapples of wilted flowers kissing the snowy ground with their gnarled petals--inventions that had once chance in greatness, but hit with the untimely frost of neglect. The area was as massive as any school's gymnasium, just the same, cracked, grimy windows located near the corners beside the ceiling's aged, slightly battered form, while several large fans were located around different regions of the lab, basically near used machines that produced the most exhaust while creating Kaiba Corporation parts and replicas.

Drills and glimmering hand tools scattered around to-be-put-together equipment, along with many spread out blow torches and solders, accompanied by oodles of large and tiny nuts-hexagonal, squared, winged, and such. But, past the debris of the area, the finery of the room verged on the countless, beautiful machines that rest side by side in great rows--models fully completed, and glittering in their high achievement.

"Hn… A to C? No-" he kept toying with the cords broodingly, pushing the tip of the hinged metal plug into its socket, and creating a tinny clicking sound each time. His hands continued operating at hurried pace. 'The third prototype, and frankly, I'm getting a impatient with the model…'

"Gettin' mad with the virtual simulator again, nii-sama? You're gonna get it right soon. Ya always do--"

At this familiar voice, Seto turned on his heel to make out the broad, genial smile from his younger brother, and glowered slightly. "Mokuba, I've told you not to barge in while I'm working more times than I can keep track." He stared back toward the mechanism and continued assembling its complicated wires. Though the tone of his voice was scolding, Mokuba spotted the hint of hidden pleasure no other individual would uncover. He knew his elder sibling was actually very glad to see him after the lonely day he usually led.

The ebony-haired youth plopped into a nearby chair, and slid it up beside his brother to inspect what the CEO was working on this time. His shimmering eyes broadened. "You mixed up one a' the cables? That's never good."

"Yes and I can handle it myself, otouto. _Dammit_--I'm getting no signal…"

Mokuba chuckled quietly and arranged the sparse contents of a small paper bag. "Sweet dumplings, nii-sama? I bought them on the way home. The guards told me ya came home from school real early and I was thinking you prob'ly needed something to eat--I'm guessing you've been working all day, as usual, so you must be starving." He beckoned the candied slab out toward his brother.

Seto covered up the distinct stab at his midsection and progressed with a blunt shake of his head. "Thanks little brother, but I'm fine. Likewise, we're having dinner in about an hour. I wouldn't want you to spoil your appetite--"

"It's just one, nii-sama. And you look peaked--a little bit for you wouldn't hurt either. Please?" The sack rustled again as he flourished it toward his next of kin pleadingly. "You work too much. Just take a little break for once an' have one with me?"

"Mokuba, I have a lot of work to do. The last thing I need is a snack time."

"But, it's--_it's_ your first day after…_well_--and I was thinkin' you needed to go easy, nii-sama. You shouldn't work a lot. At least…at least not until you feel better." The child trundled in his seat edgily and tilted down his head.

The ginger-haired teen beckoned a lazy hand toward his face. "_Look _at me, little brother. I'm fine."

It gave Mokuba pain to plainly stare toward that gaunt, pallid façade, and expect the bottomless denial his brother was forever plunging into. He knew Seto was actually very sick.

"But, nii-sama--" His jaw closed. "I guess I'll see you at dinner then." The younger Kaiba briskly treaded out from his brother's laboratory, and gloomily captured a morsel of one of the smaller dumplings. At its common, sugary flavor, Mokuba grimaced. "Dumplings always do taste better when ya got someone to share them with."

XXX

'She was going to die. I remember everything.'

_"Seto, come over here and sit by me…" She had tenuous, ashen, yet attractive lips that seemed to be slowly withering from a lack of physical moisture--no longer having the healthy, pleasant luster they once had that had also come with her son's. "Don't be scared, Seto…please come--"_

'I'd always wanted a little brother. I hardly ever spoke, so I didn't have any friends. I was coy even toward my parents.'

__

His mother had been released from the IV and infirmary bed for once, and settled at the end of the clinic hall, sitting unwearyingly onto an assortment of discolored, old-looking cushions--a dejection hung within her eyes observing her son's hesitation to approach her, and pallid hands beckoning the child to sit beside her.

A very young, rather tiny woman--around about her early twenties--with a glaringly thin body draped in a bleached-beyond-help hospital gown, gesturing and nodding toward her child warmly. Her lengthy, thick whorls of shimmering ebony hair were drawn back into an unfastened, long plait, several inky filaments hanging loose from her disheveled braid, and draping into her beguiling, cerulean eyes. An agonizingly pale, long, beautiful face that would later make up the structure of her first-born.

"Go see your mother--" The whisper kindled his very senses as he embedded his childish, sneaker-clad feet onto the brownish, shag carpet.

'The day my father found out my mother was going to have a baby, he was--overjoyed, I suppose. It was the fascination to his life. To care for my frail, sickly mother--as she slowly approached her final breath of life. Physicians had uncovered a rare blood disease that would take effect harmfully during her late teens…and eventually kill her by twenty-two if the hemoglobin in her bloodstream did not manage to increase over the time frame. It resulted in paleness and generalized weakness to her appearance which I'd always feared. Her red blood corpuscles were dying out…and too little donors were of the "O" blood type my mother had, required for full restoration of her health. The very thing that kept her immune to lethal diseases was lacking in her fragile system. Though what concerned doctors most was her pregnancy and the state of the fetus. My father was always loyal to her; always loving and always caring--but I can't recall a time he ever told me he loved me.'

__

With a small thrust from his father, he began advancing toward her, luminous, Prussian eyes--that seemed too enormous for such a small, mesmeric façade--narrowing somewhat as he toddled with the bouquet of white carnations gathered in both his tiny arms. So timid, and frightened of the very thing that gave him life…

His footsteps finally drew within the company of her reach, and his childish face slanted back toward her noiselessly. Dimpled, childlike hands brandished the great sprig of blossomed foliage in her touch, and she accepted the gift with a grateful, swift bow of her head. He clambered onto the lounging seat beside his mother--clothed in deliciously snug, corduroy Oshkosh overalls that clung to his frame practically like a second skin--unclothed, frugal, yet somewhat coltish legs dangling from the rim of his tall seating.

'The stress with carrying Mokuba only made my mother's condition worse. But I only remember a constant smile on her face. She laughed and smiled despite her inevitable failing physical being--just like the tittering, naïve child she was. She told me of her moving love for me and her promise of forever being by my side--yet, she still left me in one of the most painful ways any child or adult could ever be subjected to.'

__

"There you go, Seto. And you brought flowers, I see. You remembered. That was so--" Her expression faltered for a moment as she traced the pleasant fragrance of the gorgeous plant, and her son looked on questioningly. The female's countenance finally flickered into a broad smile as she uttered a fragile, "Thoughtful of you."

"I'll leave you two alone for now. But I'm off to go get you some lunch from the cafeteria, and little Seto can keep you company--" Hardly even an adult quite yet in appearance, the young adult ruffled his son's mane of thick, russet tresses, and treaded out of the rest home with full intention to return as soon as he could to tend to his sick wife.

'I remember her as that painfully slender, pale, ghostly figure beneath faded hospital sheets--not as my mother, but only as an ill, pregnant hospital patient with brittle, slender hands that reached for mine as a child. I was sadly…_scared_ of her, being as young as I was. Long, messy but not tangled, black hair,--almost the same as Mokuba's…pained, blue eyes…and as much as I hate to say--one of the most gorgeous, yet one of the last smiles that'll ever be worth remembering.'

__

In great distinction to the constant jostle and stirring of all the doctors, surgeons, and nurses transporting their manila portfolios, and ushering both infants and adults into their offices--togged up in either scowls or toothy grins on their expressions--to the great reek of throwaway sanatorium robes, and the constant drone of a nearby crowd of noisy people or given receptionists…the clinic seemed much more peaceful. Shizukana. Just like Seto had always loved it.

"Have you still been practicing piano, Seto?" The youthful, ailing woman almost sung the question. She chuckled toward the tiny waggle of the child's head. "What've you been playing? Did you learn that really hard song we practiced awhile back? All of it?"

"Mm-hm." At this, he nodded deeply at his mother's uncertainties.

"I'm sure you play it very well, Seto. It's a beautiful piece, too. Beethoven's Moonlight sequence. At this rate, you'll definitely play better than me one day…" Her youthful expression grew slightly downcast as she gazed toward the thrifty plastic tagged around her fragile wrist, but she quickly withheld this sorrow with another of her childlike, one-in-a-million smiles turned toward Seto.

'I was young. And completely naïve, I came to the hospital with my unsmiling father, carrying a new bouquet of carnations to replace her dead ones--wondering what he'd been so upset over--and as expected, after she'd given birth to him, she passed away. I remember my mother clasping my hands with her pale, delicate, corpselike ones, and asking me to take care of Mokuba for her. Even though I barely recognized the woman, and barely ever accredited her as my mother--seeing how pitiful she looked that night, I promised her I would before she rest in peace.'

__

She lifted her son's tiny hands observantly. "Your hands are still too small to play the really, really hard pieces quite yet…you're very smart, but you're so quiet. You know that?" A toothless beam lit her enchanting expression. It never failed to make Seto feel warmth inside. "I wonder how you're going to get through life always whispering into somebody else's ear when you're answering a stranger's question; a social misfit--although I have to admit it's still very cute." She giggled subtly and gestured toward her abdomen which was vaguely distended with pregnancy. "When your little sibling comes, let's hope you can speak up a bit. I have a feeling you're going to be more talkative if you have a brother or sister to take care of."

'Even if my mother passed away, Mokuba was born. On the other hand, my mother's anemia had left Mokuba in very poor health. I was puzzled by my mother's harrowing death, but felt actual _anger_ toward my brother's birth-it'd felt like he'd taken away the life of my mother's.'

__

The auburn-haired tot remained silent; now examining his legs swing to and fro restfully against the limbs of the whicker couch.

"What should I name her…Kohaku?"

His timorous, dithering pitch--a whispered trill amongst almost a thicket of a grand choir--gained on itself with regard to his mother's pensive tone. "It's a boy."

She cocked one brow rather playfully. "Oh? And who told you this?"

"God told me so. He said I was gonna get a little baby brother. A baby brother with long, black hair like mommy's an' big, gray eyes like the clouds on a rainy day."

'My father, however, was angry. Seated in my mother's bedside, staring toward the ceiling almost accusingly. No one offered me any comfort. I was ushered off by a group of general practitioners, scolded and told to watch Mokuba for the time being. And, being the preschooler I was, I felt emotions pouring into me. Things I'd never felt so strongly before…_confusion_…_indignation_…_anger _toward the so-called merciful God my mother had always read to me about from her hardbound Bible during my visits to the clinic. I remembered her lullabies with indications to God's love and warmth and allusions of His past marvels--yet, I only felt hate that night.'

_She decided to play along with her child's little game. "Hmm…gray eyes and black hair, huh? What do we name him then?"_

_He pondered it for a moment, pixie-like nose scrunched up in earnest thought. "Um…Mo--mo…"_

"Moku--_?"_

Seto chuckled and glimpsed toward his mother donning a jovial, seldom grin. "Mokuba!"

She laughed, delighted by her toddler's enthusiasm. "What a beautiful name…**Mokuba** it is, then!"

'But, it seems all like a lost cause now. I can't dwell on the past.'

XXX


	4. Rape Me

__

Rape Me

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WARNING: RAPE IS SHOWN IN THIS CHAPTER (GOUZABUROU/SETO).

Michiro-Chan: Just for the sake of being polite, I'll respond to those people who've taken time out of their tiring schedules to send me reviews and comment on the quality (or lack thereof) of my story. Thank you tons for all your support. Question, though--would anyone have a problem with me inserting a chapter with lyrics? If anyone has any song suggestions they'd like to give me, just give it to me in your review! I love hearing ideas from my audience!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction. The title was adopted by Nirvana's "Rape Me"--I don't own that either. Although I do really love that song… (whistle, whistle)

Song Disclaimer: "Be My Love" was composed by Brodszky, and sung by Carreras. The brief piece of the lyrics I inserted into this chapter are not mine. Sorry in advance to those of you who hate opera.

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To RoseGoddess874: Your review is much appreciated and yes, it _is _very sad. (I didn't make you _cry, _did I?) I never understood why I was bold enough to write this fan fiction, but I always felt Seto's powerful resolve and unseen insecurities could cause him to actually be a very susceptible person to this type of disorder, despite the fact hundreds would probably disagree with me. I really hope I can make Seto-kun work it all out in the end. I'll try to read your fan fiction and be sure to leave plenty of reviews sometime soon. (bow) Arigatou gozaimasu! (bow) Tasukerarimasen! (bow) Gando desu! (bow) Saiko desu!

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To Tak (BlueAngel0104): Thank you **_eternally_** for sending THREE reviews! That's so generous of you! It really makes me glad that you support this story so much, and your encouragement to the elaborate, complex language I had used earlier really made me feel thrilled I created something someone could in all honesty say they were pleased with. Your knowledgeable interpretation of my writing surprised me. It's always worthy of note to hear the viewpoints on my approach to these characters directly from my audience. Tell me, am I doing okay so far? I'd like to tell you your review truly made my day… (nikko) _domou arigatou gozaimasu!_

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To Nimtril: Thank you for your review, and I appreciate the fact you sent me a faultfinding, critical review, and on account of your critique, maybe I can make this fan fiction a little better than before (not that it may have been even _good _to start off with (giggle)). The language was a little scary, and I can completely understand if anybody had trouble with it. I'll try to keep it simpler from now on. Thank you again!

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To Chibi-Nezumi: Thank you so much for your kind review! I never realized that I grasped the moral fiber of the condition so well to a wonderful reader like you! As for the question of me ever having it…? I apologize if it's hurtful in anyway, but I feel I have to laugh out loud toward that question, because _no,_ I have never come even **_close_** to having it. Dieting is _extremely_ stressful…it's a nightmare to keep up with, it never seems worth continuing when you don't make any progress, and poor children shouldn't be on all these diets moreover! However…does my style of writing make it seem I know way too much about it for my own good? 00

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To Darkinyron: I'm surrounded by such kind commentators… (to the point of tears) thank you, and ceaseless appreciation for your approval on my story! It makes me feel so much less inadequate to hear from my reviewers! Soshite, daijoubu, daijoubu… ("Well then, it's all right, all right…") I modified the story so you can read it much more easily. Because Tak is a very devoted reviewer and appreciates my detailed style, I may transition to that grace from one chapter to another, but I'll try to avoid any extremes for the sake of my audience's sanity. I don't know if you'll ever read this story again, but-- (bows) yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

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To Spazishness: _Aww, _that is just much too sweet for my ears. God, honestly, I'm blushing here! That's so kind of you to leave something like that in your review! But anyway, I'm _positive _if you dig up a little harder, you'll definitely find some other much better written fan fictions on this website--somewhere…? All the same, still: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING! Your support will be forever remembered! I assume you won't be reviewing or reading this story again anytime soon, so in view of that…hm? _Yokatta!_

Thank you again, everybody, for your reviews.

Love,

Michiro-Chan

XXX

"If you're too busy always judging people, you never have time to learn how to love them."

XXX

I remember the very first day I met the boy. Lugged to my headquarters by that old fogey. He explained to me briefly that he'd reared the child as his own for his company's means. I'd hardly a care for my firm at the time…1992…I was so puerile and unripe to business. Freshly twenty-one, that is to say, to the point Mr. Kaiba felt groundless holding professional conversation with a CEO of such a young age. It all seemed like only a part of a foolish, wounding mystery I dubbed as time as Cynthia'd just passed away and my brainchild of "Duel Monsters" had recently spanned nationwide as a success in America. The industry earned billions because of it, and other nations were beginning to trade the design. The concept was beginning to spread _universally_ and became a global export. From that point on, I worked with an audience of children most of the time, and other adults seemed to slowly slip away from any of my concern. I only wished to delight these eager children…this innocent-eyed clutch of infancy I'd long forgotten, which reminded me of…

…Cynthia.

I was only seventeen when her casket'd been closed shut that day, the tears tracing milky tracks along my face even paler than the flesh of her corpse.

As soon as I'd set my gaze on the twelve-year-old, I was astounded by the finery of his features. Had he truly been an _orphan? _It reminded of when I'd first waylaid my first and final love in that ballroom fourteen years ago, the daughter of my father's friend. We'd waltzed beneath the moon upon that open balcony to the refrain of the grand choir.

_"Ave Maria," _they hymned so harmoniously, in a pitch I'd never thought highly of before; so unappreciative of the many oeuvres I watched on occasion. So timid I'd been when lifting my trembling hand in bid of her lovely one, with hungry eyes and a quaking form. I was raised by a wealthy family--my father being a businessman in Las Vegas--and was commonly forced to attend these long, tiresome festivities following the operas, as the social elites would have parties every night.

The night I'd caught sight of the little girl decked out in the frilled, cherry-pink and periwinkle taffeta ball gown, copious locks of rippling, wheat-like hair scattering from the tie of her matching ribbon, I experienced love at first sight. Long, hoary socks trimmed with lace at the hem--raised up past her childish knees--and ordinary, glossed, black tap dress shoes toddlers often wore while toddling to morning mass, strapped on her childish feet. Her striking face met my own with a deep smile when I proposed a dance. My cheek reddened that night…never as it had before.

Just the same, I remember _him _so well at first glance. A buttery tone of whitish gorgonzola for his engagingly delicate flesh and the hue of crimson-ruby wine for the spice of his soft, shimmering lips. The curls of his pampered mane were a milieu of wholesome, banded, beautiful mahogany…a breath and a whisper of cinnamon noshed into the timbered, gingery reddish-brown swill. Those sheared, tidy bangs spattered onto his soft brow in the fashion of a bride's veil, a jamboree of russet locks shrouding the carroty, girlish lashes of his pale yellow lids. But those vast, cerulean eyes brimmed with a pain I couldn't even begin to describe. I could tell the boy was miserable from the start, though he hid it very well.

He had a small, annoyingly slender stature--somewhat pinched-looking but still mildly healthy. He dressed wealthily in only the best clothes, this event being a broad-spectrum Japanese fashion of a dark navy pinstripe children's suit and pink bow tie, Bermuda shorts reaching only a bit above the kneecap and creased once at the hem, while donning fringed, brown penny loafers with white knickerbockers.

His mouth was fed only gourmet, bon vivant, hors d'ouevres, and the luxury cuisines of handpicked pastry-cooks and chefs. Yet, he only ate like a tiny little bird with the worst appetite imagineable. He would watch Pavarotti and other world-class performances in the gilded, curtained opera houses, completely ignorant to the magic of it all as he sat in the verandas sporting that bored-to-tears expression. The symposiums--_magnum opus_;_ tour de force_--he attended of only the supreme orchestrations I merely dreamt of hearing, were it not for the miserable silence I picked up on when listening to the tragic works…the preteen was almost as spoiled as Noa.

I'll never forget the reply I received when I'd asked Gouzaburou with some surprise to my tone, "Who's _this_ magnificent child?"

The crabby businessman rolled his eyes and countered with a gruff, "Seto. My son."

_Seto. _What a simple yet lovely given name. I only knew so much of Japanese at the time. While I could hold a good chat in the language, I still couldn't fairly conceive the culture. In what I'd known, I often heard "Seto" used as a girl's name, but it sounded even more divine on this child.

An even tinier, more gorgeous child accompanied the boy, the tyke's name being Mokuba. Mokuba was about five years younger than Seto, and clutched onto the boy like static cling. I never understood _why_ the sweet, little eight-year-old was so attached to that horror of a brother, in view of the fact that I could never seem to separate the two.

Messier curls of long length--down to the hip to be exact--and dazzling ebony in color that showed a rainbow of piebald colors beneath natural daylight like the summery stains of oil that dappled most parking lots. He was shorter and plumper, wearing an elementary schoolboy's seifuku and a ribboned sun-hat. Warmer, healthier looking, and skin tone honeyed with a golden-brown Seto absolutely lacked, his longer, darker lashes framed colossal smoldered-gray eyes and were surrounded by coal-black tassels that slopped onto his brow much the way his brother's did. The two looked nothing alike, but you could see a _bit _of a similarity if you looked closely.

The blemish of high-maintenance or self-indulgence didn't taint Seto's eyes, even if he was given only the best by Gouzaburou. He didn't take it for granted. The KaibaCorp president informed me that he pressed the boy to study a great deal and hardly allowed the poor thing to play with toys. So, I presented little Seto with his first Duel Monsters trading card. One of my personal favorites: Soul Tiger. I _have _always been such a youngster at heart, but when I presented the card to the poor thing after the cold-hearted brute left for the moment, it'd been the first time I'd seen a Japanese boy refuse a toy from me.

He shook his head lightly and pushed the card from my hands, frowning, "I'm too old to play with toys."

Rattled by the wisecrack, after the long business discussion with Mr. Kaiba when he'd returned, I requested the man to loan me Seto for an overnight stay at my manor. Gouzaburou had his suspicions to start with, but soon enough, Seto and Mokuba were due to stay in California for another week, delaying their intentions to return overseas to Japan anytime soon.

As beautiful as Kaiba-boy was, I came to find that _he_ was the only tot capable of misusing such cherubim beauty.

But for the first time, I realized that in the face of all the children I'd seen throughout my career, high-spirited and jaunty youngsters, this one bitter, sour, almost _vinegary_ son to Kaiba Gouzaburou made my heart beat faster. A crime I'd never _dreamt _of acting upon, for legal and personal reasons--

A devil in white…

…I was in love with Kaiba Seto.

XXX

__

"Kaiba-boy, have you ever modeled?"

The child maintained his soulless gaze. "I'm the heir to Kaiba Corporation…what would make you think that I'd--?"

Pegasus chuckled at the enticing glimmer of the boy's eyes as he countered the young man's few-and-far-between question. "--Modeling for a painting, I meant to ask."

The chorus of Brodszky's "Be My Love" spontaneously sounded in his mind's ear, while the hoary-haired American gazed directly into the atrocious blue of Seto's stare. Romantic vibes swept Pegasus' senses as he forced back a grimace. Sounds of opera reiterated within his ears, only him hearing it, which took him by coy surprise, as he'd lost a passion for opera ever since Cynthia had left this cold terra firma.

The vibrato of her beautiful voice conveyed such magnificent sounds among the gorgeous fragrances of the earth and the chorus of the divine wind. They didn't have a care in the world for the German-trimmed Cuckoo clock plunked in the billiard room and ticking away their ill-starred youth during the early hours of those wonderful afternoons. The pair would always lay on the flourished lilac and lily-dappled pastures in their spare time, gibbering on and on for hours about secret dreams.

Spreading out the checkered tablecloth for a picnic to propping up the canvas at one fell swoop for the artist to capture his beloved's beauty in a portrait over its chalky face by use of his acrylics and oils--it was all a dream in itself. Their minds would be drifting in anything that passed the time and spared them of even the least inkling of it all ever coming to a throbbing finish.

Such a clear memory…as a matter of fact, he could hear Carreras himself singing the overture right then--standing alone as one of the few works he'd ever enjoyed in English--

****

…Be my love, for no one else can end this yearning

This feeling you alone create

Just feel my arms, the way you've filled my dreams

The dreams that you've inspired with every sweet desire…

…And before long, that mellow baritone gracefully rung with his significant other's enchanting solo, which swished into a loving duet as he coupled her singsong soprano with a sweet tenor, sealing every lover with a reunion of supple lips…

****

…Be my love, and with your kiss the sun be burning

A kiss is all I need to seal my fate

And hand in hand, we'll find the promised land…

A dry retort broke off the memory: "No."

The child didn't have one romantic cell in his sneering body. Pegasus found a startling attraction to the twelve-year-old's lack of naïveté.

All world-weariness to the boy's tone sent off the batty business tycoon into a fit of laughter. "…I see your father's reputation certainly precedes him." One hand was rested on the scarlet cloth of his bent elbow, while his bronzed hand had taken a thoughtful place on his chin. The lace of his soft undershirt fluttering past the embroidered sleeve flailed as he mulled over the situation.

Seto looked somewhat spitting mad. "That man is anything but a father."

"Yes, it doesn't take a good judge of character to see that Mr. Kaiba is an absolute vandal," he agreed, hoping to create a damned diplomatic air between them. "--I suppose the tyrant's a legal guardian and nothing more."

His eyes narrowed and pale stare straggled off other ways as he murmured, "Hardly legal." Pegasus saw the preteen's hand clench as he snarled this statement, and couldn't exactly conceive how he should've caught the gist--he sensed its two meanings.

Conversation with the headstrong lad wasn't exactly difficult…it was more like toe-curling; cringe-making; **agonizing**.

Alas, Pegasus dared to cross further boundaries. "You're too serious, d'you realize that, Kaiba-boy? If you have such hard feelings in relation to the man, I'd think a clever youth such as yourself would understand that exchanging ill will with him would only make you, sooner or later, become exactly like him."

At last, the blank, banal face formed into a scowl. "…!"

"I can imagine it now! By the time you're sixteen, you'll be a spitting image of the bully if you keep up that crabby play-act. The tyrannical, fascist, overworking, unreasonable entrepreneur…"

"How **dare **you compare me with that **snake!** That bastard and I are **nothing** alike--!"

He chuckled, while curling a forefinger to his puckered mouth. "Oh?"

…Skin fabled as white as the alabaster unicorn's, with cheeks tinted and pearled, as May morning on the lips of a rose…

"This isn't a laughing matter, old man."

…Somehow, the velvety blend of beige and bluish-purple for the child's features struck a delicate chord within Pegasus' remembrance of those prairies of all stately cerulean, white, and mauve lilacs, the deep crimson lilies mottled hither and thither while his palm peacefully grasped his lover's, Cynthia's--shared warmth strewing between the woven members of their hands. Gentle winds had tempted them to rise and fall with the rhythm of the lush, tall grasses and kinking wild flowers…

"You certainly speak high-and-mightily for a boy that's not even a teenager quite yet."

The calmest response followed, arrogance hidden beneath its coolness--as if the boy deemed himself to be the winner of this perky squabble. "Age doesn't always matter when it comes to brains. A man could grow up to be an out-and-out idiot while some kid-genius could be taught to recite the theory of relativity like Einstein himself."

…Child, I do believe I've seen you before…

"Kaiba-boy, your seriousness is just a laugh."

…In the very face of a Cherokee rose. Such a seemingly delicate thing, doling out your seeds abroad to yonder lands, your children sowed into the depths of its foreign soils and expected to prosper just as well.

"I'm just a source of amusement for you now?" He growled, "it isn't funny."

Pegasus eased his palms down to his thighs, slanting his dolly head and signaling toward the boy's tiny range. "You're a grouchy little thing now, aren't you?"

The cupid-like mug was crumpled up in anger and his dainty arms were stiffly crossed. "Don't patronize me."

"Oh, lighten up for God's sake. What's wrong with having a bit of fun? Honestly, you have absolutely **no** sense of humor." The male's golden eyes strayed off in swift study of the pebble-dashed, Victorian cut ceiling and as his gaze swerved down to the squared trim of the fanciful walls, the dozens of paintings hung over their midst sent his mind back to its original intentions. "So Kaiba-boy, would you be up for modeling for a portrait?"

He still sounded quite irritated. "Why a portrait of **me**?"

"But of course, Seto-dear, why would any decent painter **not **want the portrait of such a lovable face like yours?"

He cringed and snarled, "No."

"**Please**, Kaiba-boy…your modesty is only making you even cuter."

"Pegasus--"

Unexpectedly, the magnate's heavy brow lifted in delight, while his lips arched into a smirk. "Well, there's only one approach left to this, Kaiba-boy, and I realize it's challenging you to something so your pride won't let you have the option of turning it down." He lightened a fairly bronzed, handsome hand toward the porcelain schoolboy and continued, "I propose a duel."

Seto pondered it deeply. "Dueru Monsutaazu--?"

"The one and only. What d'you think?" Pegasus gazed on, pending a child's approval to a man's request.

"You win, you get to paint me, and if **I** win…?"

He smiled, "Anything your little heart desires. You've played the game before, haven't you?"

Pegasus couldn't help but notice the twelve-year-old's colorless face flush poppy-red as he nearly forced a response, "…A bit. But I'm sure it won't be difficult to pick up. It's only a card game."

The young adult faked a pout. "Ahh, but it's much more than a simple card game, Kaiba-boy. I haven't become a billionaire by coming up with a worthless idea, you know. I'm sure you'll like it as much as I have--once you've caught on, that is. And certainly being that as clever as you are, I'm positive you'll pick it up in **no** time."

Pegasus' flattery seemed to add a bit of edge to Seto's voice--not to mention a modest amount of hot air to his ego. "all right then. I'll play your cheap little card game. Just don't go easy on me because I'm a beginner in your screwy charade, Pegasus. You could end up losing because of it." Every word was dispatched as if he were taken in a petty battle of wits.

He began treading away, with the little one impatiently at his heels. "You certainly have a bit of confidence in yourself, Kaiba-boy." And just upon the verge of which the boy was about to object, the unflawed Romanic structure of the American's nose veered slowly to one side, and a blaze of gold glimmered through the satiny curtain of his silvery mane as he turned his head sharply back toward Seto. "…A little admiration on my part for that."

Admittedly, Seto didn't care much for the man, yet in his current faulty frame of mind, he couldn't help but relish his presence. The boy could hardly contain the inner-grin that harrowed his moral fiber. 'It's strange, but I get a kinda' comfortable feeling when I'm around you. I don't have the least respect for you, let **alone **care for you in anyway, but still…that doesn't change the fact that it's--even a little--amusing. Attacking your dignity, that is.'

(A/N: Oh…that's the epitome of _romance, _right there. )

__

At that point in time, the two were a peculiar pair. A childish sophist and a sophisticated child…a living irony in itself.

XXX

"Nii-sama--you're not eating."

Both Kaiba brothers had been seated adjacent to one another around one of the many spherical tables of the manor, and Mokuba had taken heed, once again, of his sibling's customary, non-existent craving to eat. The brunet merely arranged his plateful of vegetables with a steady fork, enclosed within sparing fingers, and taking no notice of his brother's hushed indication, released the utensil with a clatter onto his china dish, and grimaced toward the minor, hands clasped. Mokuba's lips tightened into a thin line, eyes guarded on him, giving him the anguished expression a mother would give their boisterous child.

Meticulously pushing back his seat, he rose and nonchalantly began treading away, hands within pockets. "I'm going to headquarters. I don't know what time I'll come back, so I suggest you not wait--"

"Nii-sama." The resonance of a second wooden chair sliding against mahogany floor sounded. The adolescent quickly faltered at his brother's timid call, but refused to turn around toward him again. "I don't want you to think I haven't noticed, but I'm not sure I want to believe it."

Seto still didn't turn. "You're--you're not eating…an' you look--" Resolving in not uttering a candid response, he instead attempted at softening the terrible truth that'd been growing too powerful to ignore. "You look thin." Mokuba acknowledged that the rendering scarcely even qualified for his sibling's present condition, but felt somewhat assured with his tentative words. "A little bit too much…if you ate a little more, I'm sure you'd look healthier. But, it's almost as if you're…you're--as if ya _want_--" He lost eye contact with the elder's backside while lost in his sentence. Mokuba's throat tautened as he made an effort to maintain his tone of voice…as dithering as it was.

The tenor that followed his suggestive comment was irritable. But he noticed it wasn't his own shrill, perturbed intonation. "Speak up if you have something to say, Mokuba." Before the youthful boy could have even glimpsed it, the teenage CEO had already verged on his heel, and stood facing his terrified little brother. The oceanic orbs for eyes were only more reticent with the gingery brows that creased over both.

Mokuba trembled at his cold stare. "I didn't mean to hurt you, nii-sama. I'm just--scared, nii-sama. So scared…" A husky breath escaped his mouth as unintentionally a delinquent may flee a prison. "Couldja finish half--? I mean, before you go work again." His sneaker-clad foot hobbled restively as he stammered. "Ya gotta _eat,_ nii-sama. You barely ever have anything--"

A condescending tone sounded itself. "Who's the older sibling here, Mokuba? Who's taken care of both of us for a full seven years?" Silence was the only tongue that wagged following this powerful inquiry. "I'm taking care of _myself_. And I don't need the likes of anyone to patronize me--which includes you, Mokuba. I'm your elder brother. Whether or not you respect that, you could have the courtesy to pretend. If I choose to skip out on dinner, that's _my_ decision, and you don't object. Understand?"

"Nii-sama, you're gonna starve to death if you don't start eating soon--please understand, I--I just care about you, and I don't want anything to happen to you…" the ebony-haired twelve-year-old managed to stifle through his upcoming sobs.

The reverberation from his punctuated tone was like a cutting knife. "Mokuba, don't be silly. The _last_ thing I'll experience is death from losing my appetite during one meal." He saw the child quiver with denial of his rather cool assurance. "Otouto, look…"

"That's a lie and you know it." Those spacious, sea-gray twin crystals, usually glimmering with compassion, astonished the elder to be now almost-_enraged_. Though tears maimed his now-pained visage, the anger in his youthful voice took Seto back one step. "You've never been the same. Sometimes I think the big brother I used to know is never gonna come back, nii-sama. It's always the same now--you stopped smiling and laughing, and you shut out everybody from your life. Then machines just took over your life…and you don't even notice it, but…your obsession is _killing _you, nii-sama. Not just for real, but you're dying by the day and you don't even see it. Why've both of us stopped speaking to each other as just friends…? As family. We say we're brothers; we say we're close; but...things've changed. If our love was something you could touch, it'd be broken…and I've been afraid that no one could ever fix it."

_…Could God Himself have been speaking through this child?_

Seto descended to one knee, opening gracious, pleading arms toward a distressed, younger sibling. "Mokuba--" he murmured repentantly, beckoning the child to tread within that embrace. He didn't mean to make Mokuba cry--honestly, he didn't.

Elfin fingers bronzed in the slightest galloped along the bare, bony panel of their possessor's eldest kindred's wrist, wistful eyes coveting the quench of an annoyingly abstract happiness his fountain had long run dry of. Something that could not be purchased through even volts worth of gold, something that was graced in being intangible--**_untouchable_**--something the trimmings of olive-ish, plump feelers could not trace their impish, lamblike hillocks along its celestial midst, and forever confine it wantonly as its own--

"Nii-sama," the nearly metallic pitch whispered. He voiced fear, the dither of the phantasmal will-o'-the-wisp, the tone of a spectral ghost child left to linger outside the very bounds of heaven's gates, and cling onto those grandeur, gilded columns while relishing the too bitter savor of purgatory.

And as little brother dared to step within his elder's confines, uncertain palms tentatively cast through a red mahogany, desiccated mane--the noble lion hath fallen--even as tears painted Mokuba's crestfallen features. The final bits of screws and pieces of tarnished, corroding steel were trailing its pieces in a band along his brother's weary, scrambled path…the parts to a once so stable fortress finally devoid of its stronghold, slowly buckling down to mere rubble and pending its terminal collapse. Seto's beautiful hair was growing thin--now not the entrancingly trimmed locks that very well could have suited the crowns of archangels.

"Nii-sama," the child repeated, tarry, shaggy head inclining against the withering rampart of his brother's chest as Mokuba's fragile form finally gave way. Heavily drawn breath was too soon torn into the unstable gasps of sobs.

Seto grimaced in the least, maintaining most of his lacking compassion, while grasping his younger brother with faltering forearms.

'_…**Kami**, _Mokuba. Nakanai de--douka wakatte.'

Mokuba was moaning something unintelligible which Seto strained himself to hear. When he finally understood, his entire body congealed. "…What do I hafta' do for you to stop, nii-sama…!" Warm breath mingled with the barrier of his torso. On the verge of literally screaming-- "D'you want _me_ to starve myself, too…?" The chill didn't thaw in the least. Seto only continued fondling his brother's neglected head and proscribed the horrifying sounds, agonizing in the child's words, and on tenterhooks to the plea of him to just _stop_. Somehow he'd become lost for reproachful words. This time, he just couldn't seem to tell Mokuba he'd already gotten his fill of thoughts. He just couldn't finish scolding him today. "I'd--I'd do it…I'd do _anything _as long as you promised to **_stop-_**-! P--promised to…n--never do it…again…!"

And the youngster wasn't throwing around words just to get what he wanted, too. He knew very well of that.

The twelve-year-old towed his cranium back to cheekily hail his brother's, with tears and mucus irrigating the tiny, unquestioning mug. The glare of tears streaking those ruddy, sodden cheeks **_petrified _**Seto then and there. He'd never known how to react when he received that stare…_yes_…being scared, a long time ago, and seeing Mokuba greet him with the same _exact _grieving, grotesque yet, somehow, scenic tears--

And afresh, there was the exemplar of a sixteen-year-old multi-billionaire business tycoon denying the tattered, heartfelt photograph of no more than the vulnerable, benevolent, long-lost piece to an older brother pinkie-promising a beloved to linger by their side forever.

XXX

The creak of an opening door gradually welcomed the undreamt-of ember of a subtle light from outside the entry to his overcast, unlit bedroom. The teen's dark head immediately jolted back, though the unidentified silhouette raised its hands dismissively in a gesture of crisp declaration to a truce-Seto narrowed his cold eyes and barred his canines toward that ambiguous indication of the relenting "white flag"…he knew only _one_ idiot who would wave it so quickly for all to see…

The lock clacked shut as he closed the door again. "Cool it, Kaiba. It's me." The blonde's tone seemed to surprisingly calm the CEO, though his voice suggested none of this relief.

"I'm well awareof that, dolt."

The auburn-haired adolescent shortly toyed with the hem of his elaborate curtains, though hesitated toward his childish diversions, and slumped back onto the lavishness of his mattress, darkened tresses straggling generously along his always over-embellished furniture cushioning. Eyes wistfully trailing other ways toward the drawn tapestry over his windowpane, as if ensnared within a thirst to gape through a shielded answer. His expression slowly contorted into one of resentment, apprehensive toward the realization his life of luxury being lived all in vain.

Not a glimmer of light filtered throughout his drapery. 'Already night.'

Shuffling of clumsy footsteps onto his carpeting caused his face to only furrow further, and he gave off a rather infantile breath out from his mouth and nostrils at the clamor of shaken approach.

The boy's icy baritone almost trimmed the blonde's inner string of security in two-an uncertainty of whether relief or unease should've overtaken his response. Jounouchi decided to do the same as Kaiba: he would rest a deft mask of emotionless-ness in suppression of his sensitive, commonly quick-tempered behavior. Although unlike the Kaiba Corporation president, he knew it would be much more difficult for _him_ to keep it up for long.

"Just come in, mutt. I'm no fan of these little surprise visits of yours, but I suppose I should've expected it."

The fair-haired sixteen-year-old drew nearer toward the hostile elder Kaiba, flicker of fear concealed within the inception of his mind as he conceived the attractive form of the brunet's mane of reddish-brown locks spilling onto his opulent, yet ethereal bedspread.

He tried keeping his inflection laissez-faire, and succeeded somehow, yet the inevitable, untold tremble of fate devoured his last syllable. "No light? Why d'you got the curtains pulled over the windows, Kai--_ba_?" Jounouchi inhaled rather noisily, the agonizing tension of screaming silence casting over their sudden equanimity.

Fettering the tawny-eyed male, an unexpected rustle of a stirring bulk over fabric and creaking spring of a mattress caused him to twitch in the shoulder lawlessly, and glimpse toward the manifestly weary figure caped in the darkness, brandishing a nodding hand to their bent, weary head. Jounouchi's eyeshot had not yet adjusted to the shadows, so he merely anticipated Kaiba's expectantly callous reply.

As he'd hoped, the voice he'd received drove out to be even _colder_ than he'd expected--that familiar resonance so very sweet to his now mutiny-fearing sense of hearing. "_Why_ are you here?"

Jounouchi decided cynicism would win over this cold-blooded bastard, as nothing else would work out better. His hands slithered into his pockets, as he felt beside himself perceiving his tone emitted from his "outside self's" lips. "I don't know…maybe it's 'cause you've fallen victim to something that's only seemed to've been an issue with paranoid thirteen-year-old girls?"

There was a long pause following this…or at least it seemed long. Time was so easier said than done to guess without a pendulum swinging directly before one's stare.

"But of course. Not _only _do you have that revoltingly modish appearance the media forces under their thumb upon young 'uns of this day and age, but you can play the diplomat as well. Your gaudy take on helping others never fails to render me speechless, pup. Your _duplicitous,_ incongruous sense of complacency requiring that you have that ineffectual appeal to help others you don't even like for the mere sake of sculpting yourself into a facsimile of vulgar flawlessness to everybody else…the honorable, _well-disposed_ romantic. I don't **_need_** it…I don't need you and your swindling pity, mangy mutt. Get out of my house. Take you and your idealistic _smut_ out of here."

"Whoa there. You're throwing around words that even _you _prob'ly don't know, Kaiba. I _really _want to help you--surprising enough as it sounds even to me." Jounouchi perched onto the bed in his routinely caustic manner, and continued to speak in a shockingly composed air. "I don't know--I guess I just think that even an ungrateful prick like you doesn't deserve to starve himself to death out of self-pity. Ya…ya got a lot to offer for the world, I guess. And even though you got that god-given power to take it all away forever, I think you shouldn't--I mean, it's not right…your brother."

Seto restrained the urge to pitch the flea-bag off from his blanketing. "**_It's not self-pity_**." His nostrils nearly flared while regaining poise. "There you go again…always jabbering on and on about _illusion_--abstract things, and such…I'm too visual for that kind of wordplay, idiot…because it doesn't _exist_." His tone subsided to almost a longing timbre of that so-called "illusion". But as quick as he was to fall, his anger returned yet again. "But anyway, you have **_no_** right to drag my brother into it, Jounouchi! He's **_my _**family--**_you_** don't decide what's best for him; that decision is--! _Is_…" He wanted to say "Mokuba's", but well aware of the fact of that being an utter lie, he automatically knew he should've finished it off with an unsavory "mine." The decision was always _his, _regardless, but he didn't want to enter the risk of sounding callous toward his only relative, so he merely wavered and became lost for any further words.

"_Yours,_ right? That's how ya finish the sentence, Kaiba--" Jounouchi pended the boy's retort, though heard none come. "No use denying something everybody knows is true."

Seto's tone struggled to seem intimidating, though it sadly emerged as a mere rasp from his throat--hardly even a reprehensive sound. "Don't say it like that."

"Eh?"

"Are you _deaf? _DON'T SAY IT LIKE THAT!"

"Kaiba, _chill! _I'm just trying to be--"

"It's not my concern. Leave, _now_…**_leave_**." His hand gestured hostilely toward the shut door, though a numbness little by little cast over his senses once more, and his mouth grew into a desolate tract…a heavy feeling formed in the pit of the loathsome, barren, ravenous, saclike digestive organ of his inner recesses, while releasing a gasp and relapsing onto the mattress again. Brightness that shouldn't have existed was flashing a dazzling light before his eyes and ravaging his feeble, susceptible senses--

"Kaiba…_Kaiba_…**_Kaiba?_** You okay?"

His quivering hand rose to a tepid temple. "Of course I'm fine, pathetic dog. I don't need your _pity_--"

Jounouchi voiced genuine alarm. "Ya don't look so fine, Kaiba. You sure ya might not pass out or something--?"

The Prussian-eyed teen endeavored successfully at rising again. "Positive, bungling asshole…agh--" He throttled back groans of pain result of the great agony produced via the non-existent ingredients of his famished, hollow stomach. Only **_acid_** cutting away at his innards as opposed to the food that would never be placed within it.

"Kaiba, don't tell me you hurled back up all the chocolate you ate earlier…"

Seto staggered onto foot, and approached the entryway, hand still flourished to his throbbing forehead. "Fine. I won't tell you then…"

Jounouchi clambered back onto the ground again, and drove a petulant conquest in beating Kaiba to the door. "_Hey_. This is your _health_ we're talking 'bout, man. Don't you understand that if you keep doing what you've been doing for the past three months, you're going to _DIE_ because of it! _Huh! _D'you get that! **_KAIBA! _**You're _not_ invincible. And if you keep this up, you're going to drive yourself into a hospital…an early _grave, _for Christ's sake-and you're going to leave behind your brother once that's happened. The kid's _already_ terrified…you need to stop this."

His gaze swerved toward the ground. It was always so very simple to wander toward the ground… "I…can't."

"Why's that, Kaiba? An' here I thought that Kaiba Seto could do anything--"

He snorted, "Whatever. It's my decision whether I want it or not. And _your _opinion is definitely not going to sway my own, so just…just **_leave, _**Jounouchi. I don't want to hear your voice anymore." In any case, he was too weak to argue too much about the subject.

The blond just couldn't contain the urge to steal away with livid words. "This isn't a **_GAME_** ANYMORE, IGNORANT BASTARD! THIS IS YOUR _LIFE!_ _Realize_ that, selfish moron--" Jounouchi frowned in sudden reflection. "I don't know _why_ you're doing this, but it seems like you have another explanation for it than any other reason a teenage girl would screw up their life in going along with it for…why then, Kaiba? I mean, **_you_**--**_eating disorder? _**I don't see the connection here."

Seto surfaced his watery tomb in order to counter the boy's testimonial. He was slowly plummeting down…down…down beneath the undertow. "You have no right to know the answer to that, Jounouchi. As for the bathroom incident--" His eyes blazed, and his throat formed words that gave an impression of resultant disorientation. "Rape me."

The opposing Domino freshman formed an astounded expression. "_What?_" he rasped. "You _awright, _Kaiba?"

"Of course I am, you ingrate."

"Then--"

"I only made a statement. Seeing as its rhetoric's left you speechless, I'm guessing that you can't handle what _I _have to offer. After all," he smirked. "_You _were the one who set these little relations first."

"But…? You're a **_masochist--!_**"

His appearance grew introspective, countering Jounouchi's incredulity with a composed, "No."

It seemed more than unconvincing to the blond.

"I mean, I'm bein' serious here. You really--?"

Seto's breath caught short at that moment…

__

…Bony, tiny fists grasped compellingly onto the tarnished, blood and semen-spattered fabrics of their owner's tainted cot, while suppressing the great pain he felt from the untold misery, choked within a distress beyond words. Tears he ventured a vast struggle to withhold were now filtering from his waterlogged, gingery lashes…along his stippled complexion, every pore gapping open, dithering, and releasing both a cold and uncomfortably tepid sweat on all sides of his infantile, skeletal form.

'I hate this…I **hate** this…! **Why** do you have to do this to me, fucking bastard…!'

…An interlude of too soon bordering upon the beginning. And so easily polluted. A pallid, tattered little rag doll just awaiting the morbid hour when their joints of stitching would be no more than further undone by the delinquent, horrendous, disposed hands of their ghastly holder--day by the passing day. A hostage to fortune; a scapegoat left to forage alone, unaccompanied by his long-bearded shepherd if not his fellow sheep…

__

…The preteen's already fragile, trodden throat slowly began emerging as a mere spacious discoloration when burly, clanging shackles were fettered rigidly about it by a callous, vicious hand. His sobs were strangled…each breath, menacing the next to be his last, was managed to be drawn in erratically by the maimed child…and had he the desire to cry, in any case, the rectangular, metal hinges of the chains smothered what he had left of an ability to scream. He wouldn't have screamed anyway.

Every limb was dappled or swollen with yellowed, ample bruises on such ashen, lilied, delicate features--some cloudless enough, while others just beginning to come into view--and his stomach urged its host to plainly heave out its precious, warm contents. Seto tried his best not to throw up…Gouzaburou would have hysterics and instigate the poor boy's nausea all the more if he let his meal brim over from his trembling, clenching mouth. Every susceptible nerve slowly began to lose its fiery, sharp touch…bringing with it, a disastrous veil of numbness that taunted his sudden sensibility to emotional pain forevermore…

_The child's expansive, devastatingly miserable eyes were hardly opened at this time. A single shackle suspended far above and behind his head clasped both his wrists together; lifting fine, pale arms behind a wearily bent mass of russet, bloody hair. His face was hidden out of great shame. Seto's naked, trampled form was seated upon his lower legs, naked torso bent forward as far as he could reach--even with the husky manacles plucked around his collar--allowing his wounded cheek to rest lithely against his tiny, ivory thighs. The way they seemed to plump up by the bulk of his body sitting down made him feel he wasn't inert quite yet._

Another pinioning moan coaxed him to give in to death's stunning anesthetic, but he managed to struggle against its overtaking specter. He felt weary…starved…drained of every shard of happiness he'd ever see again…as if he were dancing upon the very lip of death--holding back from its crest for reasons unknown.

Hardly even a tap of a weathered fingertip on his knotted shoulder blade, and his skull immediately perked up from the pillow of his thigh, jerking toward the holder of that coarse…brawny…intimidating touch.

He narrowed his eyes and snarled in the rather odd demeanor of a furious pit bull, while tugging away from Gouzaburou's looming, sallow gaze. The older man merely chuckled, and wrung the chain another time around his sturdy palm as Seto's head was immediately wrenched back, and the eleven-year-old's canines gnashed forcefully regarding the livid pain of cinder steel crushing in his Adam's apple.

The whisper tingled his moderately spent senses. "Seto…did you honestly think you could get away?"

Seto didn't respond. He only quivered uncontrollably, and curled up his buttery--white limbs in futile attempt to protect the chaste, shut out, blushing region of his too, too thin figure, still containing the impulse to vomit. Needless to say, this did not go unnoticed by Gouzaburou, but the CEO decided to goad the child in the interim.

An avid, graceful hand stroked the boy's knitted brow, casting gently yet wickedly to his forehead, wherein he drew back the tresses of reddish-brown--fondling a gorgeously formed widow's peak. Seto was frightened stiff, and though he tried with all of him to jerk away from the sadist's reach, the attempt was wasted. He hated showing fear; he knew Gouzaburou relished every moment of it.

While the maddeningly slender youth made an effort not to pant in deeply, the child prodigy felt his elbow make subtle contact with a scoured, yet well-muscled chest, and grimaced in now acknowledging the fact that Gouzaburou was not clothed. Agreed, he intended to rape the middle-schooler, yet again. Seto couldn't stand it anymore.

He was blinded by brackish, thick, copious tears he'd made such a failed attempt to suppress--lone a bleary apparition his eyes picked up on…and the awkward clamor of his obfuscator of a tutor began chiding him on the domain, in his run-together Osaka accent, within his mind's ear, "**No! **This is not what your eyes see…it is what your brain sees, foolish boy…!" which sequentially followed with a heated debate, and a bit of cursing-beneath-your-breath lampoon. He was, in any case, still a child.

Seto'd been taught scrupulously by his anatomy professor many a time that it wasn't an epitome extract of a real-life picture, but a protocol the brain deciphers into eyesight…he'd memorized the formula, though didn't really have whichever care for sifting through his mind for the methodical raison d'être as to why his vision was vague now. Now he was being raped; spared of both the luxury and horror of sight, and it didn't really matter anymore whether or not he knew why.

…Though his subconscious still finally hit on it: "The total aggregate of light contacting the retinas equaling the illumination multiplied by the mimicked surface light, with varying degrees of transparency given…" It all translated into utter crap in his mind.

The blue-eyed grandeur of sheer art was grappled against the mattress, framework rasping as they flitted across its soft plane...the precious virgin Mary of his inner sanctum enveloping him within a withering, fragile embrace...serenading the cozy, redundant tales of woodland sprites, the woven bands of lovers, the forever pixilated image of entrancing seraphs plaiting a tiara of violets for his so undeserving head--

_'I **do** have enemies…and he laughs at me today. I can't let him have that privelege…!'_

"Kaiba? Kaiba!"

_'I have to stay strong…for **you, **Mokuba. I can't cry anymore…I can't be a coward; and I won't let emotion **make **me a coward anymore…!"_

XXX


	5. Beauty and the Beast

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Beauty and the Beast

Michiro-Chan: I've finally returned with yet another update--and I'm jumping right into the yaoi on behalf of all those who have waited patiently. Apologies for the considerable number of times these chapters have been updated; I usually give my friends a copy of the disk (no Internet at my house) and they update it for me--sometimes more than necessary. So, what have you thought of this story? Too flowery? not flowery enough? disturbing? think I've got a few screws loose? Well, whichever response, I'm going to need a hell of a lot more reviews to tell me what I need to revise in this story to make it better. I got the gist that this fiction drove itself into a crater last chapter. Either that, or I'm going to have to _withdraw_ rape from here on out.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction. And thousands and thousands of apologies, but I'm really going to deface Seto's character this chapter, and frankly, in order for the Jouno x Seto pairing to work, you really _have_ to slash their characters. Then again, Scorpios **_do_** use sex as a weapon… 0

Song Disclaimer: "Making of a Cyborg" lyrics shown in this chapter is the "Ghost In The Shell" theme for the beginning piece, composed by Kenji Kawai and sung by Saeko Higuchi. I'm borrowing it temporarily to give this chapter an alien effect--I really like it for one reason or another. I had to rent it to remember the lyrics 'cuz I saw the movie such a long time ago... 0

As for you kind reviewers:

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BlueEyesjammys15: A million thank yous for your heartwarming review, and I'm glad that you like it! I'm hoping that you'll come back and read again soon.

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Flame Hell: Good God, I have such kind critics! Critics…**_kind_**? Crap, that's…_definitely_ an oxymoron. Well, I've been part of this little creative writing community since I was about twelve years old (fifteen now), and I used to only write slapstick works. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the story. I'll try to update as soon as I can.

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Spazishness: Oh, you're still reading! Honestly, I'm so _touched_ that you would come back after such a loooooong time to keep reading, and even leave another review behind! I'm so lucky to have such nice reviewers…and completely **_ecstatic_** to learn that you like my story so much! I'll keep writing and updating ASAP, and hope that that'll make up for the kindness in your good deed. And don't even be concerned about it--I absolutely do **_NOT_** mind if you put this story on your favorites. In fact, I'd be HAPPY as hell if you did. Thank you so much for your review!

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Repmet: _Delighted_ in seeing that you think the plot's interesting. It is rather different from the other dark accounts on this website, and it didn't take me too long to find it out. And yes, the language **_was _**complex, and Seto-sama _did _seem like he'd eaten a Britannica. If you happen to read again, you'll have to keep a watch on the language, because I'm going to keep throwing it here and there for the overall style of the story.

Thanks for your support, the hits, the reviews, the author alerts, everything.

Love,

Michiro-Chan

XXX

"When it gets dark enough, you can see stars in the sky."

XXX

(A/N: Excuse the fluffiness, I was listening to "Let Me Be With You" (Chobits) obsessively. The dialogue for this was originally written in Japanese.)

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Masses of gathered prestigious academy textbooks, Britannicas, Webster's series, and almanacs beyond count were piled around the undergraduate in a tormenting circumnavigation, while heaps of cast-off, ragged notebooks and stationary were run down to the timbered floor in another startling harvest. Seto sat in the great midst of an open, college-like schoolroom, calmed by the non-existent sounds of his lecturer's scolding, trite tone-indebted to whatever god who normally didn't give a fuck about him that the brute had retired for the afternoon, as well as the rest of the haggard week.

This was the very last backdrop Kaiba Seto wanted to befall as the lead role of on the Christmas Eve of 1992. Sadly, he knew he'd be starring every following year until his adoptive father somehow managed to be assassinated or expire in some little known way. Seto would've gladly taken Gouzaburou's life if he'd been given the opening, but with such a busy schedule…

According to the grapevine, the old tutor had been struck down with a seasonal virus that'd been going round that winter regularly from child to fogey. Given that the man could easily qualify for an archeological relic, the educationalist's immunity was bound to deceive him at his primitive age. And given that, Seto was finally allowed to work at his own pace with lessons, only silence or the occasional echo of unimportant noises accompanying him on his staled, academic journey.

The brunet wasn't exactly quite what you'd say on top of things with his own welfare at the moment, as Gouzaburou strongly insisted on Seto's education over health. Easily expected. So there he was--of anything but his own free will--interpreting Aristotle's stages of the tragic hero, festering crabbily toward the Latin usage while a fiber of paled, plague-ridden mucus trailed its path along the flourishes of his pixie-like nostril.

"Arte…Hubris…Ate…Nemesis…"

A brittle, toneless hand shakily swept up the greenish lather, and loutishly swabbed away the debris onto the sleeve of his clothing as he studied the book…an act which Mr. Kaiba would undoubtedly have the boy beheaded for bad manners.

He shuddered violently, cradling the book in his dithering grasp, face even dowdier than usual because of untreated sickness, corneas blood-shot, nasal congestion only worsening, throbbing of his sinuses clear of the long-loathed migraine, and body on the point of collapse. The devoted student wanted to rest, he honestly did--as an arranged doctor had already cautioned the mustached tycoon that his son'd desperately needed it--but the child knew he would be forced into an epitome of torment if he didn't get his studies done.

Seto was giving his all to blitz on the text printed on the page set before him, but his feverish conditions weren't allowing him to do that. Sleep…yes; sleep was nice to have once in a while. Unfortunately, the youngster hadn't been getting much these days. At the least, he was naturally satisfied with the regular three hours a night, but it didn't lessen the effect of whiteness and generalized weakness to his appearance. His classmates ordinarily kept their distance from the vaporous, chalky-faced, gruesomely lean heir to the KaibaCorp throne, some marveled, others sickened. The twelve-year-old could have really cared less if Hideki Tojo himself had notified him on his lack of popularity--as if such a man had the right to talk, anyway.

Aside from his need in politeness, the boy was a physically poor participant in any workout activities. He took PE only for the required credits, but still…white, ghastly bones and eyes were the only visible participant among the other fostered, healthy bodies whom he tried so hard not to envy all of their carriers' clearly happy lifestyles. For this, the preteen was thankful his brute of a parent didn't require that Seto live out any tiring drills or maneuvers on behalf of the man's high military beliefs. On the other hand, the child hardly breathed in even traces of fresh air, knowing that he would be forever forced to stay inside and finish a term paper or read another chapter of an irritatingly worded, stupid novel.

Seto sighed. This hardly passed for the new life he'd worked so hard to get for the both them…after all, he'd been the only ten-year-old kid with the nerve--or stupidity--enough to tell off a grandee which could have very well mounted Seto's head over his mantelpiece if Gouzaburou'd fancied it at the time. But Seto was still trying his hardest. Now that he'd established his sense of pride, there would be no way he'd be homeward bound to the rat-hole he and Mokuba were once forced to call home. No way.

He didn't care if he had to give up his happiness just to prevent that from happening…what he had left of a childhood wasn't really worth anything to him either way…his physical wellbeing…his mental stability…consecrated realms of his body--provinces of which he'd already forfeited to the tyrant…time to time his younger brother was accidentally thrown into the suite…or even his life was willingly put on the line, as selfish as it was to his avowal of guarding Mokuba.

But, in the manner of any Japanese fundamental martial strategist, he would never lay down arms to his dignity, as if the failure of being belted onto the harness of havoc, and hauled off in return to the doghouse was the boy's personal bushido--the greatest dishonor of a combatant. Taking fearsome flight with a quivering tail stuck between his haunches was something he'd never lower himself to.

A samurai would decidedly disembowel himself with his own katana rather than being taken prisoner by the enemy…the flower girls had opted to grasping hands, gazing wistfully toward one another upon the budding, weeping morn, and dropping from a cliff into demise rather than being raped by the disembarking American soldiers…the propitious student coming to the shame of not being received into the university they'd applied for would puncture their skull out of shame…Kaiba Seto would rather forsake his brother, be assaulted, whipped, starved, crucified, overtaxed and underpaid by an errant pedophiliac than be towed back to the orphanage.

Anything but the orphanage. He'd sooner cross the viaduct into asceticism and watch Gouzaburou set fire to the damned bridge in apathy than be tossed back into that child penitentiary again. Still…hadn't he done that already?

Though he knew, eventually, he would vanquish this autocrat of an adoptive father, and draw their deadly dance to a finale as the victor voicing the final, "Checkmate." But instead of before, he wouldn't have to cheat this time. He would play by every one of Gouzaburou's perilous rules, and it would only make his victory all the sweeter once he triumphed in the perpetrator's own sick game.

The grand array of wooden work surfaces were disposed by uninspired architecture, row by row coming to a ceiling rise once it reached the lofty wall furthest to him, while the focus of the class offered attention to the lowest point of the room, occupying the area facing the pre-adolescent. It contained a sizeable chalkboard--dappled with smears as of forgotten teachings--and an untidy school desk beside it. It was a college-based classroom intended for many students to gather and be taught or take notes on a lecture delivered by their not-so compassionless professor. Instead, the room was being used by a twelve-year-old boy with an otherworldly IQ of 221, bordered by a never-ending cascade of books, whose tutor would feast upon the child's entrails if he dared to neglect even one assignment.

Seto wasn't the type to be optimistic about these kinds of things either. However, he did **not **dwell on his blunted nothingness or basked in self-pity. After all, Kaiba Seto always had work to do and lived as a militant diehard, even at his young age. And despised loafers with a passion.

Falteringly, the gingery-haired youth placed down the book onto his desk due to agonizing fatigue, and rested for a bit. Just to lay down his head down for a minute--just to shake off a bit of the exhaustion--and then he'd keep on going with his revisions. It wasn't really procrastination…just a little break. And whatever the case may be, he was working as hard as his body would let him.

His fingers shakily took hold of his nearby backpack, and managed to reach the quaking forearm inside, finally mining a small container from its depths. The mastermind quickly surveyed the bottle's contents, nodded weakly in his own approval, and undid the urn's safe-locked plastic cap, tipping a single gel capsule into his gaping palm. An expression of pure pain was shown through his suffocated features as he placed the dose into his mouth and slowly swallowed. Though clearly not pleased with the prescribed amount, the preteen spilled out three other tablets, funding an unpromising, destructive hunger he couldn't seem to resist for supplements of morphine in the medication. Luckily, Mokuba didn't know about these little episodes he'd had with the drugs before, because if the tot did end up finding out--

"Nii-sama, what're you doing--? **Nii-sama--!**"

"Mokuba, **stop**. It's my medication…give it back…!"

"**Please** don't do it, nii-sama! Yer hurting yourself when ya do that…just like you hurt me, too."

"Otouto--"

"When you take lots of pills, it hurts me too!" He would gawk so hauntingly with those colossal eyes strewn with tears and pearled in their wake, broad as tableware at that instant. "…C--'cause we're…a part a' each other. We pinkie-promised, nii-sama…p--please don't…**don't**…hurt yourself like this--ya gotta remember our promise, or ya might stop moving, and I'll never see you ever again…!"

…Otouto. He knew he was blessed to have such an angel be a part of his life. It was the only gift-wrapped keepsake Seto felt God Himself had offered into his coveting, once-unsullied hands, as little as the time had been that the babe-in-arms was duty-bound by his mother to believe in the daft parting of the Red Sea, the trusty golden-winged keepers of the Father assigned to eager children, and the only son He'd forgone to be crucified in place for all the sins of humanity. "Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae…"

Seto's eyes grew pained while murmuring its exultant translation in a quality of sound that bared utter heartache. "The angels of the Lord announced unto Mary…" His wrist cleared past his nostril once more, smearing off another froth of nasal residue, and as soon his arms had roosted back down onto the writing desk, the fingers of his anemic-ish hands tamped together into a taut fist. Christmas morning was what was really bothering him. It was already Christmas Eve, after all…

The celebration of the holiday was for only commercial reason in Japan, as you'd hardly come across a person in the country whom actually understood what Christmas was for--"Datte ano omiyage kunai kara?" ("Isn't it for the presents?")--but albeit that Kaiba Seto knew its true meaning, he wasn't that fond of the gifts either way. Gouzaburou wasn't really of the gift-giving, philanthropic nature, so as a rule, the two were left to plod in their misery if the man'd "forgotten" to buy presents for the occasion. Mokuba, above all, had been in hysteria after not receiving a single toy pending Christmas the first year they'd been brought to the mansion, but clearly got the message that both would have to put up with it come next year. Seto didn't care whether he got so much has a lump of coal wrapped up in an unraveling, smelly stocking, though on the contrary, pitied Mokuba when the little one was in tears to unearth nothing beneath the garlanded Christmas tree.

Seto pled with all his heart to those angels he'd always hated that the child wouldn't be in tears again because of that. That just maybe Mokuba would be strong enough to smother those sobs that festered the brunet's psychological wellbeing--or lack thereof.

Even with the guilt trip, he still tipped another dosage into his hand, with unflagging intention to consume it. He knew it really was wrong…he knew he'd really made a pinkie-promise to be the best, sealed the spit-shake, hallmarked the pledge with a kiss, and even crossed his heart…but to breach the sacred covenant of a preschooler--a baby brother--who'd only wished for his elder sibling's best, and successfully overcome the guilt complex, he knew he honestly was starting to become like that bastard.

But without warning, the echo of light, tentative footsteps into the room caught the wunderkind unawares. "…!"

Quickly, he shut the container, and plunged hastily for his backpack with the last traces of his thinned strength, dropping the bottle within the bag's inlands while finally sealing it off. The last thing Seto wanted was for a stool pigeon of the mansion to dash off to Mr. Kaiba notifying the businessman that his son was an addict, with high hopes they'd get a pathetic sum of bones of favorable payment thrown their way. Gouzaburou's workforce came almost like the Gestapo in Seto's view: him being the monitored civilian, Gouzaburou being the dictator noshed with the boy's demerits by his staff.

The schoolboy dully resumed his readings, acting even slightly fascinated, until he received an unexpected response from the faceless individual. Everything surrounding him blurred in the handiwork of a kindergartner's sloppily finger-painted portrait…a treasure Seto held dearly of which would never be pinned up on the refrigerator beside his father's approval--

"…Nii-sama?"

It was answered with a gasp of shock from the twelve-year-old. "Mokuba! Wh--what are you doing up so late?"

His retinas bit by bit focused on the tiny silhouette far below from him, until the freckled picture pushed together its stray pieces to take shape into an adoring, bug-eyed, pining, self-denying little damsel left to mosey for her prince.

And as fast as the image came together, his migraine didn't allow it to stay that way any longer. A hallucination of sick little girls and boys spiraling and holding hands played again and again in his brain, chorusing with struggled smiles, "Ring around the rosy, pocket full of poesies, ashes, ashes, we all fall **dead-**-!" as his body began to crash down onto the wooden counter with the children's mistaken refrain, elbows clamping onto the surface by reflex and supporting his dilapidated form. God, that gesture must've looked so pathetic to his little brother…

Mokuba only perched his head to the right shoulder, in the enchanting caricature of an exotic bird, and began slowly treading toward the set of large stairs beside Seto that divided the compilation of desks. The seven-year-old's blossoming, ebony thickets were wound into snugger and shorter locks at the time--another trim recently ordered by Mr. Kaiba--although were as lustrous as ever, the flourishing ringlets sprigged with blues and blacks while enfolding fleshier, rosier, cherubim cheeks. The imp held one arm behind him coyly apparently clutching a blanket, the other being rested at his side, as a one-eyed tattered velveteen dangled limply from a dimpled fist, the plush teddy bear having been tended to by the kid since the crib.

His tarry-haired brother carried on in the usual shy, almost god-fearing approach, little by little quickening when he scaled those steps barefoot one after another while the shabby toy aimlessly bounced back against his knee. Mokuba's dark tresses spiraled as he scrambled near his brother, donning plaid nighties of pale limes and golden pastels, and expression lusting. Tone no more than a small twitter, he finally tore toward his exhausted brother through the frightening pile of books, and tossed elfin arms around the elder's neck, looking as if the youngest had lost all thoughts of ever letting go. "Nii-sama!" he moaned into the older boy's chest, slowly being adopted into his sibling's arms as well.

Seto ran soothing hands through the elementary-schooler's divine bouquet of raven hair, languid gaze lowering to the boy's slate-colored head. "Mokuba, you shouldn't be up at this hour…and where are your socks? You'll get sick if you run around the house without them on--"

"I've missed you so much, nii-sama! I was lookin' for ya all over the place--" God's most devoted soul chirped into his knight-in-shining-armor's benevolent grasp. "I'm so glad you're here with me!" The older boy could've sworn he felt tiny droplets filter into his shirt. "But don't ever think I'm losing any hope, nii-sama… 'cuz I know in the end, ya always come t' rescue me sooner or later."

As Mokuba beamed back blithely to his older brother, expecting the wholehearted smile, but instead, received a rather lethargic grin. The pull of his embrace slackened with concern, gaze now reduced to the ground. Hidden disappointment was expressly patent in this gesture. "Nii-sama? Whatcha' doin' up this late? Ya look sleepy. That big bully hasn't been makin' ya study through the night…has he?"

In the impulse of a mother troubled for their son's cheerfulness's sake, Seto brushed the burden aside, forcing himself to recite a lie to do so. "No, it's all right, Mokuba. Don't be bothered about it. He didn't force me; I just wanted to get it out of the way."

The ebony-haired youth seemed to show a bit of doubt in this statement--being as shrewd as he was with his sibling's predictable habits--though quickly concealed this skepticism. This did not go overlooked by the twelve-year-old as Mokuba only resumed his childishly-forced inspection, wistfully knowing that he'd be always given the untouched, comforting response. "H--he's feeding you okay…mm-hm? You're skinnier than normal too, nii-sama. An' ya sound sick."

Seto withdrew at that. He couldn't stand how his disease had to show in his dreary shortness of self-security and weedy, frail form. But eventually, he knew he would be able to waste this depraved asshole, and re-establish the precious health he once had. Then, he would be strong enough to pretend that the world was just the cosseting oyster that was really never once there for him…then, he could keep living as the most critical case of untreated neurosis in psychological record, still screening everything with that so-familiar cold film of disdain, and people would never dare suspect the poor boy to be tormented on the insides.

"Mokuba, don't be silly. I…just--I haven't been feeling quite myself lately." He slogged with this lingering statement even as his weak gaze decayed in the struggle for any further words, probing angst forcing long-term stay into storm-gray eyes. More like **months**. A year, odds-on. The dull, unbearable spasms of hunger he'd been forced to breathe underside to day after day had become one of his obnoxious companions.

Heroism, loyalty, generosity, kindness, nobility…all of these beautiful aspects to even one of the biggest humanitarians was completely forgone when that certain someone had barely anything to eat.

Seto noticed this glimmer of despair thrown out from the smaller boy and quickly shot for that smile to unfurl along the adorable face once more--even if it was fake. Either way, it was easier to glimpse into happy eyes…misery was just too much to bear anymore. "I'm fine, okay?"

"I guess if ya say so," Mokuba murmured. "But, anyhow…that big crummy ogre shouldn't be tellin' ya what t' do! Ya shouldn't let him take over your whole life--!"

"Mokuba," he cocked one brow crustily and silenced the boy.

"…Umm…sorry, nii-sama." He suddenly erupted into chiming, pixie-like laughter. "I don't think I've ever met anyone s' pretty as you, nii-sama." The child slowly embraced the older boy as he continued whispering his puerile, ridiculous tribute no child a mere year beyond the young 'un's age would ever even think of mentioning. Meanwhile, Seto was finding it surprisingly difficult not to redden in the face. "…And I never will. You're just as pretty as my guardian an--" As if in startling grasp of the reference he'd just made aloud, Mokuba quickly quashed any further words.

Seto rolled annoyed eyes heavenwards. "Mokuba. Don't act immature. There's no such thing as angels and you know better than to come here talking nonsense to me about your fairytales. They're only dreams."

The boy couldn't help but soldier on, gesturing cheerfully to prove his fanciful point. "But I could feel her, nii-sama…! She's a pretty, pretty white angel with long black hair who reads me bedtime stories and sings lullabies for me. Her face looks just like yours. Like a painting even the **bestest** watercolorer in the whole wide world couldn't put together! An' her eyes were the same blue as yours. Blue, blue, blue. Like sapphires or an ocean," he blathered on in his lovesick, seven-year-old zeal. "--I could really touch her when she kissed me or hugged me, nii-sama. I could even hear her heart beat. She said she'd stay with me forever and ever, an' for me to never, ever be scared 'cuz she'd always keep watching over me…"

"It's your imagination, Mokuba."

"But--" his lamblike bleat grew trancelike, features embroidered with absolute heartache at his elder's distrust. Since when did he stop believing in the faerietale that both could dwell together in their storybook happy ever after? "…What if it's okaasan comin' back for us? I know I'd want it to be her--"

"Otouto, angels don't **exist** and I don't want to hear anymore babbling coming from you about this. Our mother is a thing of the past and sooner or later, your babyish dreams will also have to be that too."

Mokuba's wounded gaze swayed down to an untidy pleat in his folded lap. Big brothers sure were mean sometimes. "I'm--real sorry, nii-sama."

…The only one cruel enough to set fire to a child's precious castle in the sky.

A startling thwack led the double act out of their unhappy stupor.

"What the…!"

"Ahh--!"

The smaller lad stumbled out of blunt fear, his following stagger clearly proving his reflexes were not very well practiced. Dangerously within reach of the dodgy point that his doll-delicate frame would tumble down those bleak set of steps, a redeemer's hand grasped the tiny, flailing wrist, and firmly tugged so that reckless little Moki collapsed into the safe passage of his nii-sama's lap, out of harm's way…forever.

The twelve-year-old couldn't help but smile somewhat as his adorable younger brother clumsily heaved himself back onto his bent knees and grinned back with a spangled stare, cheeks sprinkled with a rosy, undeniably enchanted dust. "You should really be more careful."

Mokuba's expression spewed into a faint-hearted grimace, "Th--thanks, Seto. But--" His limbs scrambled tensely from his last but certainly not least relative, and thrusted out behind his trembling, uneasy form. The blanket he'd dropped earlier rustled as he pushed it gently aside and grabbed something beneath it.

With yet another lovable scuttle of stubby, cherubim legs frilled in PJs, the tyke heaved up and cradled a fairly large, colorful package--or at least it seemed big for such a tiny boy--in both arms from the steep stairs he'd been forced to fully bend over to even get a hold of. After a bell-like groan rung from the raven-haired angel's parted lips, the little one bent toward the eldest and released the package onto the stair with a generous smack that sent the room in trills Mokuba found himself regretting.

Seto's gaze unwounded, exposing a bit of softness onto his classically stiff features.

It was beautifully wrapped. Sparkling, starry, silvery wrapping paper tucked and creased scruffily here and messily there, even scattered patches far and wide of Blue-Eyes White Dragons twirling their glittering, graceful, cygnet-like throats or roaring with a frightening yet pleasing show of teeth. Their silhouettes, which clashed with the brilliant silver backdrop, made it seem as if they were floating along the six panes of the package--gorgeous creatures seraphs would appoint as their own trusty steeds. To end with, the work of art was festooned at the lid with a slightly wilting, oversized ribbon, halos and curls of hoary azure laid drooping over the sides of the parcel. Absolutely breathtaking.

Why yes, at a glance, you could tell that the gift was wrapped by a child who didn't know what they were really doing to start off with, but putting all that aside…you could also tell at a glance that the present was wrapped for a very special someone.

"Merry Christmas," the youngest beamed broadly.

He was stunned. "…Mokuba."

"Aww…well, I'm sorry that I didn't wrap it that good. But, b'fore ya open it, there's a card right there, see? Couldja' read it--?"

Trembling fingertips delved beneath the glassy, sapphire locks of the bow, studiously tugged out the strip of masking tape on the card, cautious not to tear, and slipped out a sweet, crayon-drawn, also_ sloppily folded sheet of paper of which the words "Me--ri Kurisumasu" were scribbled out in cluttered Katakana toward the top and another three renderings of young master Kaiba's pet Duel Monsters were squiggled below it astonishingly well._

"C'mon, read it! Read it--!"

He slid it open, and read the words silently, 'Anata no koto wasurenai…itsumo anata wo kangaeteru wa…itsumo daisuki, onii-sama.' (I will never forget you…I'll always think of you…I'll always love you, big brother.)

_Normally, the pre-pubescent would've been prone to correcting Mokuba's untidy Kanji strokes. Normally, Seto wouldn't even have one romantic nerve touched by his sibling's loving deed, but for some reason, tonight--he felt a shiver._

After a stretched moment of stillness, a crumple produced by the oldest made the ingénue's head turn. "Nii-sama?"

Much to the tot's wonder, he was toothily grinning. "Thanks, little brother."

Seto looked so princely when he smiled like that…just to witness those pale pink bands of flesh turned upright again, his baby brother'd pick every single star of the heavens in a bundle within bare arms.

The twelve-winter-old child was suddenly reminded of his dear departed mother--seeing a bit of her within Mokuba at that instant…fashioned into his mind as the memory of a little, ebony-haired girl divine as a porcelain doll in her white ballerina tights, pink garlands and velvet church dresses trimmed with satin frills…wafting with the childish scent of pure fairylike magic. He even dredged up the name of the perfume: Ma Cherie, Amie--petite and sweet.

He was even lucky enough to remember going to the dazzling cathedral with his hands atop his mother's and father's as only a toddler, the trio on bent, naïve knee with hands clasped praying to the bravura Mary statuettes, his mother's cheery teachings with the preschooler of the Bible and of God's Word, and the alienation of their family from the flock being that they were always social misfits, as most in Japan were usually Shinto or Buddhist.

Those days made Adam and Eve's mistake seem so fictional. Those unripe years, in themselves, were God's promised utopia.

But now…as little as the time would last, paradise was here too.

"Hey, aren'tchya gonna open the present now--?"

"Mokuba." This immediately caught the youth's attention. That tone voiced a hint of Seto's need to pick a bone with the youngster. "Why did you get a gift for me?"

The little princess's gape tilted down awkwardly. "Well, I--I don't know. I know ya've been workin' lots, an' I just wanted to make you happy. But s'gonna be the same thing all over again like last Christmas. Crummy Gouzaburou won't bother to get either one a' us even one present…! Like always."

"Really now?"

"Yeah, 'cuz he's a big, fat meanie! And all he does all day is count his money and spend it all for himself! Hmph! I hope he goes on another one a' his business trips an' never _comes back!" The child's display of fury began sending their older brother into a fit of hushed laughter. "Good riddance, grouchy, mean, ole' Gouzaburou--!"_

"Well, how are you so sure you're not going to get any_ presents this Christmas?" Seto purred teasingly._

Surprise overtook Mokuba's features. "…But, there was nothin' under the tree when I checked."

The elder's chin proceeded to rest coolly on his palm. "Oh, not under the tree, exactly--"

"Huh? Then where, nii-sama--! Where are they--? Did'jya see 'em? Were they big--!"

"Just the one," he smirked.

The little one was beginning to get sick of these never-ending jibes. "Just tell me! Tell me, will ya?"

Another rustle came and a second, much larger package pulled from Seto's schoolbag was placed, this time, in front of the little furby. "Merry Christmas to you, too." Although Kaiba-kun's parcel was so neatly enclosed and the ribbons neatly arranged, he couldn't help but like the way Mokuba wrapped his own a little better. Not because it was more flashy, but because of the hard work Mokuba had put into creating such a one-of-a-kind disaster with wrapping paper.

"Ya got me one too!"

"What kind of brother would I be if I didn't?"

Both gazed toward one another in a rather muted dreaminess during the awkward instance of silence, until the smallest's expression glowed yet again, and he leapt on the other in childish thanks, nearly decking the boy in the process of throwing his arms around him.

The grade-schooler's smile opened out enchantingly while his expression became hopelessly devoted and he tossed himself and his delicately bronzed hands onward, forelimbs roughly nestling around his nii-sama's neck. "Thank you! You're the bestest big brother in the whole world!" he twittered, resting his cheek beneath the gingery-haired heir apparent's pale jowls.

Needless to say, the seventh-grader was certainly caught off guard, but forbearing a hidden smile all the while.

"Mokuba…? Don't you want to open your present?"

"--Huh? Oh, no, nii-sama! That's not how it works." He shook his head self-righteously, and proceeded to speak patronizingly, balking slightly and pressing a russet forefinger forward to tap the small of their bearer's chest more lightly than any butterfly. Naturally, Seto wasn't intimidated in the least, after all, this was only coming from a seven-year-old. "I gave ya the first present, so you_ gotta open yours first."_

He easily concurred and went on to carefully undo the tape securing the jumbled folds of gaudy wrapping paper, until all was left in a painstaking heap beside the gift. It was an oversized book possibly more gorgeous than the package originally was itself…and not just any regular old textbook.

The hardback appeared at a glance like a delightful little wedding album or children's scrapping book, but when observed at length, one'd find that it was a hardbound the barest shade of cherry owing to sakura trees painted in the milieu, traces of ebony brushwood seen lacing throughout the Godly pink posies of petals, while the margins of the cover were woven with pale pastel taffeta ribbons and flourishes, with an English cover hand-written in decorative cursive that told it all: "My First Book of Faerietales."

Seto's eyes widened. "An American book? Mokuba, how could you get the money to buy something like this…? It must've been expensive."

"Mm-hm, but--" the tot shrugged. "I can't read what the front says, but I thought it was super pretty."

Indeed, it was, at the midst of the cover resided a waltzing couple festooned in an old-fashioner's finest--the little lady arisen like a carroty-clothed terracotta figurine, lightly tanned, bare shoulders adorned in the monogrammed and tawny bateau of her ball gown, while the crest of her cleavage was elegantly exposed. Her orange-ish sleeves flared out at forearm in an embroidered tuft of white frills beneath, straddling the tiny span of her waistline as one hand gently held her significant other's gloved hand. Upon a dark, gorgeous, glossy head of shocking blue-black, long, unpinned locks that seemed to simply drift in the portrait, a tiara made up of three gingery roses and strung pearls was placed on top, while a necklace and a single rose to match was strewn about her beautiful collar. At the base of the girl's orangey girdle her gown bloated and swept her tiny feet in the likeness of a conservative late, Lolita 1800's design as she gazed hungrily toward her ballet companion, eyes doting blue-gray and lips faintly loving.

The gentleman of the dance, however, was garnished in military uniform. Black and olive-ish cloth adorned with pins, collar emblems, ornamented straps and belt buckles, and even a pocket watch dangling from his elaborate, lower pocket. He dressed in a pair of lavish, white hand gloves and returned his lover's stare with a somewhat more solemn one. Almost womanish in visage, defined cheekbones, broad-shouldered, tall and slender very nearly like a female in stature, while pleasurably long-legged. Cerulean-eyed, brunet, and noticeably pale. In fact, the lass's golden-brown complexion neighboring the ashy lad's caused the male's features to seem snowy. Clean as snow…while the trimmed tails of his coat soared behind the flawless couple's waltz…

--Was it just him, or was the male character made to look like an older, much, much taller version of himself? Or were their similarities just coincidence? And was that otouto as a woman…?

"…You…don't like it?" He chirped sadly, but the boy tilted his chin up so that his gawp locked with his sibling's.

"Of course I do. It's great--honestly, I love it, Mokuba. Thank you." His blank expression turned up into a coy smile at which Mokuba instantly giggled toward. The oldest pecked his little brother's slate-colored head while clasping the picture-book. It really was_ such a beautiful gift._

"Now I'm gonna open mine!"

The jaunty tearing of wrapping paper came once more and the present was uncovered as a large cardboard box enclosing something very special that the little one'd been wanting for years: "Wow! Ya got me rollerblades? Ooo, can I put 'em on now? Ya gotta let me try 'em! Please--?"

"Mokuba, you don't even know how to rollerblade yet. We should wait for the snow to melt and practice in the spring at the park. If we do it inside, then--"

"Please! Just one time around! No one'll find out! Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye."

Seto was forced to stifle a gasp when he stumbled upon the author and illustrator's name while flipping over the lid--'Pegasus J. Crawford.'

XXX

"…Kaiba?"

The boy, at last, made a swift motion of his head, signaling unfruitful consciousness, which shook Jounouchi out from his bolt of the blue.

Rape was a gesture of uncontained affection, wasn't it? If one were to victimize himself with hopes to benefit another? All the brunet realized was that if he were left in this room any longer, accompanied only by the teen, he would lose control. Not control in the aspect of falling bottom from first in command, but in the view that his self-control would fail him. The teen was well aware of only being capable of causing destruction when it came to social matters…as he'd done it so many times in the past.

--Because there was a time when he couldn't defend even his dearest. Yes, a massacre of guilt had bathed every one of the preteen's nerves when the ten-year-old Mokuba greeted him with aghast, wounded eyes and pled contrition as if literally imprisoned within a confessional booth…screaming apologies that should've never even built hindrance within such a childlike mind. It was something Seto never took the fault for…wasn't it?

His past was beginning to flash before his eyes all over again…

__

"Seto…I'm going to give you something of a--well, test, I suppose you could call it."

The preteen cringed. Gouzaburou was well aware of the boy loathing to be addressed by his given name, and in that single gesture, the legatee to KaibaCorp knew it gave the him the immediate upper-hand. Seto kept his antagonism silent and lowered his surprisingly faltering gaze, hands clasped behind him in the similar imitation of a clergyman. "Yes, Mr. Kaiba?" He dared to persist, even with the harrowing knob tightening in his throat, and gummy fluids mingling with the entrance to his gorge. "What type of test?"

…Wouldn't it just be the same with Jounouchi? Not that it really had an impact with _him,_ but it would be just another affiliate to rack up on his register, and he knew it wouldn't do much good for his morale.

A diffident, detracting, insecure little boy who'd grown up to be such a well-bred hypocrite, such a dogmatic cheater, and such a manic, uncompromising user. Reared to be only the supreme in clash, raised recognizing that human emotion was the precipice of farewell between precision of machinery and vulnerability of mortality, and one day to be dispensed with at death by all else, left seeing that all he lived was an unfathomable lie.

That all he ever was was a dirty, scruffy, little orphan boy who'd been lucky enough to catch the right man at the right time, and had cheated all the way through to get his way.

He hated not being able to block out his emotion sometimes. Emotion, as a general rule for Kaiba Seto, sucked.

**__**

A ga maeba--

Jittery, disenchanted cobalt darted about the floors, in madcap observation of the lush, puckish scores of fitted, fanciful carpet. Pale traces of the patent luxurious leather shoes having trundled over the exquisite, arabesque material countless times, so evident through the hearth rug's elegantly scuffed up appearance. It was a rococo design many members of the residence took great pride in. In any case, the view was a much more tempting substitute to staring directly into those menacing, leaden, weathered eyes. Unfortunately, to the child's shock, a sallow palm graced their not-so gentle touch upon velvety, milky jowls and steered his glare directly toward the CEO's. The lithe, poised flounce of the man's marital band finger along the crook of his brow sent the barest gingery curl on end.

'Dammit--'

"It'll be a test of stamina, you could say." Seto's eyes hardened, repressing any traces of vulnerability to the brute. Frankly, he was terrified right out of his fucking mind--but he wasn't about to let the bastard figure that out so easily. Either way, the reek of blatant fear coagulating in the conditioned air around their woolly suit-clad forms was inevitable...and it made this insightful, sad excuse for an adoptive parent crave to have the brackish, frigid, saline, bitter traces whisk his taste buds.

"I can do anything you throw at me," the beautiful youth murmured more raspingly than he could ever intend.

Gouzaburou deftly detected the dour note of fear through the schoolboy's agitated gesture, and carried on with vast satisfaction in his coup. "Are you really certain of that, son?"

…Gauche stillness. For ever and a day, it would always be the worst kind for the two as long as they'd lived. The first to penetrate the stupor yet again proceeded with an inferno of fiery blond.

"Kaiba. Y'know you're gonna have to stop this soon. If ya keep on going the way you are--" Jounouchi delayed out of obvious discomfort with describing the grotesque possibilities that were taking vivid form into his staggered head. Instead, his upper jaw shunted bit by bit over his lower lip, and stiffened at the lucid rhythm of its pulse. "Ya might as well go out searching for a nice, swanky coffin for them to put your precious remains in, rich boy."

Seto bit back with no vigor spared, a brace of blazing ocean tides--sapphire flames--electric-cerulean lightning gawking adamantly toward him. "And since when have I taken advice from _you, _dog? Since when have you ever understood my ways of doing what I do? You don't know a thing about me, and even so, you've always been second-rate, especially when it's ever come to brains…you're not one to judge, Jounouchi. As long as you're under my roof, you'll be following _my_ ground rules, pup, and if not, you can just frolic out the front door, shut the door on your merry way out, and not come back. Either one would satisfy me, more or less."

__

The bulge began trapping itself in his throat, in stingy company with a harried pulse in the jugular region--the two being the bearer of bad news. Seto's breath began coming up in silent pants only Gouzaburou had the precision enough to notice--and blithely watch the brace of the little one's lilied nostrils varying with release and frazzled inhalation; every wisp of carbon dioxide juddering from the youngster's narrowly parted lips resembling a potpourri of rapture brought to wanton mortal relish alone himself could taste.

"Yes." Seto knew dark sarcasm couldn't be effectively voiced by him--at least, not now.

****

…kuwashime yoini keri.

A tone of near complacency strummed sound into Jounouchi's voice as he wittered on, temporarily shaking the boy out from his flicker of insight-- "Well Kaiba, I'm getting the feeling ya actually don't **_want_** me to leave. I mean, with that mention ya made before--"

The blond was heaved to a standstill by a scornful thud interrupting his triumphant, deceptive head-feint. Tonight, Seto was going to face his fears all over again. "--Tch. Easy for someone as simple as you to misinterpret it."

__

Bile laced through the hardly compos mentis barrier of his tongue and teeth as Gouzaburou continued. "To begin with--" the despot's lingering physique bent forward with amazing poise, twisting his broadened upper lip unswervingly toward the tyke's paled lobe, searing sounds eddying into the deafened depth of his cochlea to the pulse of a heretical waltz he pined to sit out from. The kempt, dark garnishes of the man's mustache were so tempted to just ease along the child's temple--in bittersweet company of syrupy saliva--as he murmured a flustering request: "Unbutton your pants."

'You **can't---**'

Jou began slowly noticing that Kaiba was occasionally dozing off in a strange mental interference, but couldn't seem to hit on what exactly was glazing over the brunet's expression. "What's there to cotton on! Honestly, Kaiba, you weren't really _low key_. You were totally throwin' it out there for--!"

Unnervingly withered hands had interned the boy's throat, wasted knuckle ensnaring the bronzed, bobbing apple. The youngest yet nimbler slanted his aplomb with poise, and shifted water-starved lips intimately to his lobe, the lick of every muted pant singeing Jounouchi's adrenaline. "You and I know very well that both of us share these sentiments exactly. I could really care less for the whole romance bit. But I'm not about to act subtle for something that can be easily done in later on. I could give a fuck for whether it's a sin or not…so, I'm **_insisting_**. Listen well when I speak to you, dog. Call it what you will, but…" His consonants were tongues against the ruddy crook of the urchin's cheekbone. "--_Take me._"

__

The ballet of macabre--a pageant of moldering corpses of Seto's indigenous necropolis…garlanded in their finest, somewhat unfulfilling dress, fleshless tibias jangling with the chords of the pianist, with cock-crow upon its wake. The short while the gods would smear their valiant dyes thrice of rubies, whites, and vapors among the slumbering universe would be the moment their festivities would clatter to a lethal end--that is to say, until twilight returned again to the skeletal recitalists.

A tiny bulk thudded as the little one struck back his wrist from everything but a gentleman's touch and bit back with electric-nautica engulfing his gaze, pale draping intensifying his facial decorum. "You sick, twisted **bastard**. I could get you arrested for sodomy! I know my fucking rights, you old fool…I won't let you lay a damn finger on--!"

The mannish fist wrung the porcelain, morose waif of the boy's forearm as he resisted. Gouzaburou's sallow hand began pearling, Seto observed, packing together so that the twelve-year-old saw the cloying thumb tamp past the first range of brawny knuckles and inch toward the second set.

"Let go…! Let **go--! **You fucking **coward**…!"

"Kaiba, are you _cra--!_"

…Piercing tendons tugged Seto yet again to reality, the lesser of the two wallowing within ensured silence just as the semee voiced his riposte. He heaved heavily in and growled, "Don't go easy on me. Don't withhold anything. Do everything on a whim. Don't tease. Make it forceful; _bitter. _Do that…" --with a giddying squeeze that sent almost electric dizzy spells of no traceable end throughout every track of Katsuya's nerves-- "…And I'll return it in full."

"Ya **_do_** realize that you're asking me to--"

"Spare me the pleasantries, Jounouchi. I don't care whether its insensible, or whether its faulty enough to get me thrown into an asylum," he hissed, "you lit a fire, Jounouchi…we're not about to let it die down to nothing, and I'm not going to be toyed with for the sake of your own personal amusement. As it is already, you've wasted about twenty minutes of my time at _my _home bickering about something that, frankly, shouldn't even involve you. So…" His joints began to slacken. "D'you plan to pay your due?"

__

"I've noticed over time, son, you've grown up quite a bit over the past two years. I felt you were prepared to take the next step in your training. However, if it's not in your forte, all you have to do is whisper--" the twang calmly vaporized into a vocal concoction of utter nausea for him as a profane, "…I surrender."

A sharp still sedated vibration licked through the mangled muscle in his static limb and progressed to his heart. "You're throwing around empty threats, just to keep your adoptive twelve-year-old son in line! **Pathetic**--I don't have to do a damn thing for anyone, let alone you--!"

"And if you happen to refuse, scamper out that door, and tell anyone," he wisped, "something precious to you will be at stake--in punishment for your disobedience."

'No...you **can't...**that's not fair...that's not **fair…!**'

****

A ga maeba--

XXX

Michiro-Chan: This chapter is actually STILL undone and unedited. When I get the chance to sit and actually work on the yaoi, I'll have more than a teaser posted up for all of you.


	6. temporary teaser for readers

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A Teaser for BEYOND Patient Readers

****

!THANK YOU! OVER _1000 _HITS!

AND _YAAAY! _ I'M SIXTEEN NOW!

A/N: Because I'm so incompetent, I haven't had the time to sit down and write for you all. But I do appreciate the hits, minna. Anyway, I PROMISE I WILL POST SOMETHING SOON AND A YAOI WILL BE MORE THAN A FRACTION OF THAT POST! So much has happened I can't get to it really. I'm in a school play and we work non-stop after school. I'm talking like 3:00 to 7:00 sessions here. I come home and have to do homework too. CRAP! I'M SORRY! IT'S NO EXCUSE! I'VE BETRAYED YOU ALL! Enjoy the...teaser and whatnot, tho...

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuu-Gi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

Onto responses:

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A Little Bit Of Happiness: Aw, my writing's not _that _great. 00 And I'm glad you're enjoying reading it. Oh, and I saw you noticed the pairings in this story...I'm assuming you don't approve of a few...? Yes, Pegasus x Seto-sama is one of them. Mokuba x Seto-sama could be uncovered, 'cuz little Moki does talk more than he should about how beautiful Seto-sama is. But Jou x Seto-sama is the main attraction here, so I hope that doesn't bother you. Heehee, I make Seto-sama a lot meaner than he really is. BTW, I'm uber-excited you put my Set-sama x Seto-sama pairing under your C2 community! Thanks a ton! And thank you so much for taking the loooong time off to read my story! It takes me ages to update...

****

BlueEyesjammys: Glad to see you coming back for more, AND with a new account! Yay! You should try out writing a story yourself...honestly, getting reviews for your work has to be one of the best feelings in the world. And yeah, I read your bio, yes--the way Seto-sama can place one hand on his hip and conceal over half the width of his waist is somewhat disturbing. I'm guessing the camera _takes away_ ten pounds for Kaiba-kun... and yes, the yaoi is here! I hope you're not going to be too busy cringing in disgust and can manage to enjoy it. So, yes, this chapter is for you!

Thanks again, everyone. You are all awesome. The number of hits get higher and higher everyday...would love it if you reviewed more, but love ya anyway.

Love,

Michiro-Chan

XXX

__

"Aa, Kaiba-boii?" the flaxen-haired male chuckled as he drew back several hoary, blond strands of his debonair mane. "Hasashiburi dayone, Kaiba-boii! Aitakatta-tabetai? Ano…douzo--kitte kudasai…" (What a pleasant surprise, Kaiba-boy! I've been wanting to see you--would you like something to eat, then? Well…please--come inside…)

An enormous typhoon was beginning to brew outdoors, which left the boy of roughly fourteen trembling and sopping to the marrow right on Pegasus' majestic castle doorsteps. Thick, russet, uncombed tresses whipped within the feral tongues of the wind--drenched down to his skull and clinging to slicked, anemic features like epoxy resin. While very tempted to enter, he shook his heavy head and clasped his shoulders tentatively. Long, fair-brown lashes were dripping with something of tears, Pegasus noticed. He was beautiful as ever...so wet, powerless, and just so hopelessly beautiful...

"Uun--" (No--) His eyes captured a hidden, acrid pain beneath the cold front that would slowly strengthen as both the boy and his apathy grew older. Heh. Imitated politeness? Or maybe another one of his enchanting inducements none could ever manage to see through? Pegasus was well aware of the fact that the child was a little impostor, con artist, and pilferer. That he was a little felon dressed in a rookie's disguise.

"Shinpai shinaide--hazukashi garanaide kitte." (Don't worry--don't be shy now and come inside.)

Wearily, the sickeningly white teen trudged into the ashy blonde's home, residue trickling from his dirty, tailored garments and costly, precious dress shoes onto the hospitable founder of Duel Monsters' carpeting.

"Sore kara…" (Well then…)

Seto coughed up a bit of blood, swiping it away stoically with the back of his hand and addressed him quietly, "Tabetakunai--eigo de hanasou." (Don't wanna eat--and we're talking in English.)

"Sounano?" (Really now?) The leucous young adult's almond, bullion eyes were glistening in a rather playful loss of nerve. "Okkee, Kaiba-boii…"

But his gaze quickly changed toward the blossoming sprig of blood leeking through the attire swaddling the boy's torso, and the mottled bruises and abrasions flecking his pale, delicate flesh--clearly wreaked by a beastly hand. Pegasus made no side comments, as he knew Seto would be too stubborn to confess that the gashes and bruises caused him any pain, let alone mention Gouzaburou's name. This elegiac embryonic rose of demise resumed its dispersal only further along his upper trunk…no doubt the briny rainfall of the tycoon, which had soaked down the boy's clothes, leaking into the wound and making the pain only worse.

"And where's the little one? He's not with you--?"

"I came here alone on the aircraft…Mokuba doesn't know I'm here, nor does Mr. Kaiba." Each syllable he uttered seemed to crystallize as a fragile, broken note nearly incapable of forming sound. A sallow hand was clenched in on the wound whittled into his chest, and Pegasus continued to watch the teeming sums of blood that issued through the thinned textile and onto those frail fists--so undeserving of having such snow-white features smeared with the gruesome fluids. The annoyingly cool child made a futile effort to stop the bleeding directly at the rim of the cut--thousands of volts of pain surging throughout his body--but the torment didn't seem to be letting itself appear on that icy façade.

But impressive. The egghead had mastered English within a scope of two years, a mere iota of an accent evident beneath that bold little tone. "Alone? Honestly, I'm touched, Kaiba-boy. Well now…I suppose I'll take care of you for the time being, but I don't have a clue as to why you've crossed an entire ocean to arrive here in the first place--but I won't bother with asking. God knows what goes through that depraved mind of yours, **hn, **Kaiba-boy?" He gave off a slight laugh at his amusement of the situation, even if the usual sarcasm making up his tenor gave off the barest hint of waver while observing Seto's childish face shaped into a dark expression.

"I came here on strict business, Pegasus."

"And what else is new?"

He scowled, and produced a statement that, to the Industrial Illusions president, seemed like only a result of delirium. "Show me, Pegasus. Take me up on that offer. We've established connections, and I need it now more than ever…show it to…me--"

His body began buckling, but Pegasus shifted quickly enough to catch the porcelain frame. Blood trickled onto his spotless sleeve as he embraced the featherlike bulk. Even so, albatross somehow always seemed to feel so heavy to hold no matter the creature's size. "Kaiba-boy, we're taking you to rest."

"I can't go back…I **can't**--go…back…"

...So bizarre, yet rather enticing. Sweet exposure. Their little secret. That was always in whimsical Pegasus' taste, anyway.

Kaiba Seto looked like a blithe child as he slept. The rude awakening of daylight was what always tore him from the cuckoo storybook of his nightly trances--

There, Pegasus J. Crawford sat with one nimble thigh crossed over the other in his classic feline fashion at Seto's bedside in another of his elegant throne-like chairs, monitoring the blue-eyed beauty's lovely doze. He couldn't help but notice how much more gorgeous the youth had grown in the past two years.

The fairly intact, velvety, milky flesh of his face was a shade of cool gray no ivory horn could ever hope to achieve. The slumbering, creamy expression rested at its side--seeming to be at peace--was assembled with longer, more limber features: a heavier brow, a willowy nose, and nimbly shaped, graceful lips that resembled the cut of two white-rose petals. The beautiful crown was relayed by a supple neck and rougher collarbones, buttery-toned cheeks were sculpted with more trim and a much more defined framework to them--nearly skull-like--while long, cranberry-strewn eyelashes laced over the maddeningly clear cheekbones and played their faint shadows over the pale mounds.

Russet, coasting, dowdy tendrils framed the adoring face, and galloped their mahogany path around a moon-pale head, curling toward the ends at about the lower nape of his neck. The boy's petite yet coltish-legged figure was veiled in the throw spread over his frail form, while his chest was draped in heavy nighties, the collar of the nightshirt so huge for his narrow depth, it hung over both his shoulders. His eyelids masked eyes waiting to be open.

Pegasus knew the smallest features to his appearance so well: the tiny freckle on his left shoulder, the quirk to his right brow, the pout to his lips, and the dimple to his cheeks that opened out when he growled the little things that mattered so much. Whatever the case was--

…He hadn't looked after him or tried to save him from the obvious harm that awaited him when he returned to Gouzaburou that day. He was letting that ogre slowly kill the poor littlie. He knew it was being done through nonstop studying and through physical abuse…rape, maybe? But this little urchin he cared so much about, literally behind closed doors--he was turning his back on him. Either way, Kaiba-boy would be too stubborn to fess up and ask for help anyway. But he couldn't help but feel like it was his fault.

"Ughn…"

Seto's relaxed expression became a troubled one, and his head began to steadily swing to and fro--

'It's been so long since I've seen you sleep, Kaiba-boy. Just the same, I haven't seen you smile for even longer.'

"Aa, honto shimpa shita shimashita…" (Ahh, I was really starting to worry about you…)

"**Ah**--"

A cozy glow flared through the unshakable dark of his lids. Gingery lashes fluttered apart, exposing celestial blue, vision making out the hazy profile of a lightly tanned, carroty-eyed blond.

That nearly musical tone he recognized so well came again-- "So he finally wakes."

Being as weak as he was, he hardly had the strength to even open his eyes and clamber onto the support of his elbows. But noticing that the original setting had been relocated, he gasped, and swung his limbs over the bedside with a surge of dilute adrenaline.

"Na…nanda? Naze?" (Wha…what? Why am I--?) The trill of his remark voiced exhaustion beyond description. Realizing that he was speaking to the American whom he had taken upon himself an unwise proposition to chat in their language--thanks to his big, fat ego, of course--his pronunciation left his native tongue and transitioned to the slurred, uncharted realms of the English language instead. His pride was too overblown just to give up. "**Agh**…I have things to do…this wasn't s'posed to happen--"

His sluggish heels thudded as they collided with the floor, mind too far in the billows to realize how weak he really was after the hemorrhage from the night before. Either way, once his entire weight had been evenly distributed over both bare feet, the burden was still too much for him to bear, as his hands were forced to delve for the nightstand and shore up his trembling breadth. Dizzy spells had him on the verge of fainting.

"No, no. You passed out from the blood loss, Kaiba-boy--and seeing as how exhausted you still are, I suggest you lie back onto that bed and keep sleeping until you feel up to par." The older shook a heavy head and led him back to the mattress, only to have the doting hand smacked away.

"I don't need your help--!" Seto's expression twisted into the legendary scowl, and he heaved in, deciding that a retort was in session, but a sharp stab sent out from his stomach stopped him from continuing. "…**Shimata**…" He twirled his head down in agonized defeat, the two mangled arms holding up his frame giving way just for the second.

His groan was hardly heard, though it didn't go unnoticed by Pegasus. A reddish, trembling hand ventured beneath the button-down shirt and onto a scored midsection he expected to be swathed in a wool of congealed blood…but quivering nerves accessing the ends of his fingertips told his brain that his hand had come into contact with the soft cotton mesh of bandages. Frowning toward this episode that plagued his mind with suspicion, he lifted the comfortable, enormous fabric of the top that was obviously lent to him by the Industrial Illusions CEO, and saw his fine, frosty little torso tightly wrapped in bandages, the cleft of his belly making for an already very disturbing sight.

The nightstand clattered as he tugged his deathly stare back to Pegasus' and barked, "**Nanda kore-**-!" (**What the hell is this**--!)

His accent remained as composed as ever. "You needed medical attention, little one. That little cut you had penetrated your stomach lining. You would've ceased to keep on living if I hadn't called for medics. I didn't allow the doctor to have you hospitalized--as much as you needed it--but I did have him stitch you up and give you a sedative to lessen the pain, Kaiba-boy. Meanwhile, I've been here, told to watch you for the time being." He paused, lips curling into a menacing grin and index finger tilting a tepid chin toward his own. "You wouldn't happen to have anything that you'd need to tell your beloved, old friend Pegasus about, hmm? Maybe a little secret? Not that I'm saying you didn't hide the damage well enough, but sadly, if you come to my doorstep, spilling blood over my Persian carpeting, conking out from the pain, and expect to lounge around my castle the next morning as if not a thing happened, I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else, my good friend. This is Pegasus J. Crawford you are speaking to. And I'd like to know how you've allowed Gouzaburou to toy around with you to your breaking point, Seto-dear."

His thin upper lip curled, exposing lethal-looking incisors as he sneered, "Don't call me that."

"Ahh, I see that Kaiba-boy is still a bit of a grump at the crack of dawn. Not much of a morning person, are you? Or are you just always in such a good mood?"

A blossom of reddish-brown turned toward Pegasus as Seto shuddered and tilted his head down in fury. "Yame…**yamero yo**."

His forefinger teased the hillock of his chin as he beamed. "Stop what, pardon?"

"Your…quirky…little tirades. I hate the way you speak to me…like I'm some stupid kid," he muttered, clenching his ghostly hands into fists--the only gesture of fury he was capable of carrying out without knocking himself out cold.

"Still can't bear playing the underdog, can you? Hm. Look up a bit, Kaiba-boy."

Amazingly enough, the boy did as he was told, and slowly lifted his head with the snippets of strength he managed to've kept. "**Ugn**…"

Feeling flesh finger his own, he decided that he was too tired to fend it off now even if he hated being touched by others. More to the point, he knew Pegasus was just going to blather on about the usual chimeras, the illusory thoughts Kaiba-kun refused to believe. He was continuously reminded of a grandparent catering to their grandchild whenever he paid visits to Pegasus' dreamy domain. Coddled, pampered, crammed with food, spoiled rotten, the works. His little brother always enjoyed himself during visits, even being as hopelessly shy as he was. Usually it was something any kid would enjoy, but Seto…he wasn't the type to admit openly that he liked the attention.

Limply, his soles veered around so that his buttocks plunked onto the bedside table and he chanced a stare before the madman, eye-to-eye. His nightie bottoms were large in comparison to his little girth, so he was forced to constantly hitch them up along his waist, making for a very uncomfortable sitting--not to mention that no migrating mother bear could be sleepier than Kaiba Seto at that moment.

"How frightfully upsetting--" Seto already didn't like the way this conversation was going. "You're taller, but I'd have to say you're still a bit on the short side for a middle-schooler your age."

He could care less about what the man had to say about him. More than anything, his hunger pangs were growing into unbearable pain. Mokuba'd snuck him a few saltine crackers two nights before--which he snubbed unless he split the share with Moki--but other than that, he'd gone hungry and thirsty for a bit over fifty hours. After all, Gouzaburou only let him eat when he finished his studies, passed expectations and such. His forearms were nestled tightly into his torso, not allowing any rumbles of his tummy to break the surface in favor of Pegsy's unneeded attention.

Even so, Pegasus didn't need sounds to see that young Master Kaiba was miserable.

The painter's dainty hand silkily probed Seto's dingy wrist, pulled up the cuff of the sleeve until he contacted scandalously skinny upper arms, shook his head, and clucked in disapproval. "And I see that your father is cheating you out of his money, eh? I distinctly told you last time to eat._ You've hardly fleshed out--in fact, I think you're even more of a little waif than you were at twelve, Kaiba-boy."_

Nonetheless, his palm gently traced the boy's cheek and he smirked. "You've certainly changed since I've set eyes on that face. It gets such painful nostalgia going by again. Tsk, tsk, tsk. You've lost those awfully cute, chubby cheeks. And those bags beneath your eyes are not what I'd call quite flattering…" His gaze began to tug other ways. "It makes me feel sad to see that sweet, baby face clear away, but I suppose when life gives you nothing but litter, you have to learn how to get used to it once in awhile, hm? But it's still such a tragedy. Another pair of innocent eyes in the world wiped away of all good and happiness by the vicious hand of reality."

He'd heard enough. "**Pegasasu-**-"

"Yes, my dear little Seto? Are you upset because you see truth at its worst, now? Are you a tad frustrated seeing that unless you tell someone about it, that nothing may ever be done, and you will always remain nothing?"

The boy stiffened and grew livid. "Shut…up. **Shut up,** Pegasus. I don't want to hear you ramble on about what you think my standard of living is."

"Oh dear me, must you be so cruel? You're such a crotchety, cold child, Kaiba-boy. You act so much like a bitter old man sometimes…"

"And d'you honestly think that the world's shown any more compassion to me?"

"Sorry to hear that, but I get the drift that you've been putting up with it quite well nowadays. Seeing as those gashes carved you in and out--"

Seto's anger began taking control, setting him off into a rage so extreme, it resulted in the wreckage of a dearly high-priced reading lamp that'd originally taken a fine place on the nightstand. Debris of the lush porcelain scattered along the ground as he rasped and eventually screamed, "**Urusei. URUSEI! URUSEEEEEI!**" (**Shut up. SHUT UP! SHUT UUUUP!**)

The shards of glass were embedding into his feet, and forming cuts...the blood...he couldn't stand it...

The businessman had to say, he was shaken. "My, my. You're a bit ill-tempered, too. But I suppose your old uncle Pegasus knows when to call it quits. Onto other matters, then. Are you up for some breakfast? I imagine you're not going to cooperate and keep sleeping?"

Straddling onto his rickety legs again, Seto decided to make for a very unproductive escape, murmuring, "**No-**-I have to go…go back…home…"

Only thing was, a startlingly strong grasp on his sleeve thwarted his plans. "Now stop right there, Kaiba-boy. You're not going back home anytime soon. You're staying right here with me. With the blood loss you had yesterday, you're not going to recover moving around like this. The last thing you can do is operate an aircraft--let alone during a storm--bearing in mind how trounced you were last night. I have no idea how you got here alive last night, but we're not taking another risk of letting you go off alone."

Pegasus was shocked to see the little one still resist. "Let go of me…I **have **to…**go**. I have to--"

"Kaiba-boy, you never give yourself even the tiniest break. You need rest."

"No…**let go**--!"

"Kaiba-boy…"

"**TE DOKETE YO!**" (**GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!**)

"How would you like it if dear little Mokuba found out about this, hm?"

Suddenly, it hit him. Otouto. The memory of the coarse golds and browns of old-fashioned picture making veered within his brain to that one mid-afternoon. Yeah, all the other kids were being plucked out from the orphanage one by one by eager families, while him and Mokuba were left behind--refusing to leave without the other.

Mokuba had gazed toward him with that adoring ambition in his eyes, declaring that they would never, ever leave each other. He harked back to the elfin hand thrusted devotedly his way, and remembered his own being staunchly placed over his younger sibling's as he twittered:

'Nii-sama! Zutto isshou ni itai yo--?' (Nii-sama! Do you want to stay together forever--?)

And he replied with a brisk nod:

'Aa. Yakusaku suru.' (Yes. I promise.)

"Mokuba," he muttered.

"Come, come now. Don't be thoughtless. You're going to eat well in my home, Kaiba-boy, given that I could really care less exactly what kind of nutrition program Gouzaburou has you on, or what he's feeding you and all that whatnot." Pegasus briefly examined the arm he clasped, fairly nagging in his glance until he finally erupted into another fit of chuckles.

"What's so damn funny!"

"--What a wonderful lifestyle. Lounging in the study with piles of books to study, no toys, no sweets, no play, no baby brother…no joys of childhood. You know they have a little saying in America for that--what was it again? Ah, yes: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' I just hope that little Japanese boys aren't all like you, Kaiba-boy."

Seto didn't bother to hold in the upcoming growl. "This is no time to throw around your little gibes, you--"

"Shall we go for tea, then? It's always rather fun to relive the past from time to time, wouldn't you agree?"

The way Pegasus spoke sometimes, it really made him wonder...

The ninth-grader, instead, didn't respond hotly to this. Tea actually sounded excellent to him. "...I guess so."

Pegasus merely laughed. "Fuantasutiku! Ikimashouka."

XXX

GOMMENNASAI! I WILL POST _SOON!_


	7. Silver Jubilee

_**Silver Jubilee**_

**WARNING: YAOI IS SHOWN IN THIS CHAPTER (JOUNOUCHI/SETO) AND MORE RAPE (GOUZABUROU/SETO). READERS ARE REMINDED THAT SETO IS NOT AT A HEALTHY WEIGHT, THEREFORE THE YAOI MAY BE OFFENSIVE.**_  
_

**_!!!THANK YOU!!! OVER 2000 HITS!!!_**

Finally! The time has come, my readers, for the yaoi you've all been waiting for. Read what you see above--you must NOT forget that Seto-sama has lost THIRTY-FIVE pounds here. He's not all muscle and chiseled flesh--Jou however... Take Seto's regular weight of one hundred and forty-three and do the math: he's only one hundred and eight pounds and he's 6'1". Not a good combination. Let's face it people, his body isn't quite the typical fangirl's match of "hott," EMACIATED is more like it. Nevertheless, I will stay true to his ED and describe him as is. But for those of you who are into that...well, enjoy, I guess. I'm the sicko writing it, so don't feel bad that you're enjoying it.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Yuugi-Ou! nor do I own any of the characters used in this fan fiction.

**Song Disclaimer**: "Making Of A Cyborg" is still Kenji Kawai's piece of work--not mine.

XXX

"…Donna ni ii kudemo…kawaii kutemo…suki ni naranai hoka ii yo. Ato de nakita kunai darou."

(No matter how good they are…no matter how cute they are…it's best if you don't fall in love. If later, you don't want to cry.)

XXX

Kaiba Seto stood alone at the midst of the empty men's locker room, anticipating that the personal fitness instructor could just say, "Track…" for God's sake, "Track…" and if by happenstance, the old-timer did happen to utter "Pool," the CEO fully knew he'd be royally screwed. The stringent coach did not accept a put-on "stomachache"--or a real one, for that matter--and any signed doctor's note brandished before the brute's weathered hand would immediately be torn into shreds and disposed of into the nearest trash bin.

The last thing the Kaiba Corporation president needed was for the entire student body to spread word round that the well-to-do golden boy of the school was actually susceptible to an eating disorder, and would freely flaunt such a disgusting form for all underclassmen to see. Apart from that, he was always such a weak swimmer. Even when his body was strong…his breath-taking was always so erratic beneath and above the water. However, Jounouchi, along with his feeble-minded comrade, Honda, both always excelled in the sport--as expected.

Seto had observed the teen so many times before, as he'd observed most everyone lately: taut, bronzed flesh stiff over chiseled muscle…yet, he maintained a slim, willowy appearance somehow. He'd rest a weary chin on his fist, and glimpse over the disarray of diversely formed undergraduates, voyeuristic to some point. Thin; too muscled; scrawny; fair enough; an atypical fat one here and there; not up to par on his vision of the norm…a white forefinger would sum up even a girl's waistline he judged to be slighter than his own, and he'd brandish self-conscious hands to his stomach sulkily. So strange…he'd never had such a forced judgment upon people by their supposed weight. He generally really didn't give a damn.

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter. Jounouchi...was it so wrong? So wrong to gaze toward the long, trim limbs that fluttered with lean muscle as he treaded, the washboard flat of his stomach that still displayed a rather pleasing twist of taunting tissue that managed to play its way onto his picture-perfect torso when he'd crook forward sequentially to pick up a stray towel, a set of goggles, whatever--he wasn't really concerned, as he only lingered alone at the end of the bench of chattering students, always watching everyone else with greenish eyes…the boy's sun-stained tresses twirling along his glistening, blithe, smiling expression--so cheerful seeming with both Yuugi and Honda at his sides. A reddish pink, well noshed tone of complexion, features forever undiluted of blemishes and undesired excess oil that routinely spilled onto a newly blossomed teen.

Three months before, at that time, Seto was a bit under his everyday weight of 65 kilos by way of another one of his accidental food shortages via his drawn out, wild urges to work for hours on end, fueled only by pints of the black coffee he always took as. He, accordingly, felt very uncomfortable attending PE swimming with about five pounds staved off of his wiry frame, and had full intentions of regaining the weight. Seto was fully aware of the fact that any person at the prime of their youth came to a point where even a little amount like three pounds was just too much to shake off. In the end, he never had put on those five extra pounds.

It seemed so long ago…when the world only revolved around him, and his stupid company, and he'd no care for whatever he was while he was running it, because it was his. And he'd let no one take it away from him. So possessive…so materialistic…so unthinkingly superficial.

6'1"--186 centimeters…143 pounds under the terms of the American measurement system. He was always infuriatingly slim--the figure of his torso beng so comparable to the stringy boon of a female beauty pageant frontrunner, along with the help of his pretty face...he'd always been the unicorn string-bean--as much as he used to hate admitting, even for his young age; his lanky limbs being 'spider legs' as Mokuba used to call them; a registered trademark of graceful outward appearance the media would highly recommend a boy of such height to toy around with for a decent career in professional modeling; the type of gawky aesthetic a physician would frown upon and demand the customary 'ten-pound little weight gain' while scrawling his unintelligible signature onto his manila, ink-laid loose-leaf, spurning the click-out of his tacky pen against his clipboard.

Without a doubt, Seto never really had the time or the obligation to pack on a few extra pounds, as much as Mokuba and his servants used to pressure him on the subject. Everybody seemed to sort of give up on him after awhile.

But now…he was a bit over Mazaki's depth, and she came up about 21 centimeters short of him. Despite this, he was well aware of females functioning on a framework of adipose tissue--a.k.a. natural body fat--as follows, blubber had lighter density than muscle, and women could reach remarkably lesser depths of weight as opposed to males when they rid of this fatty matter. Men operated on muscle, and required more food for both development and sustenance for the avaricious glucose substances and glands within the muscles.

Ha…he, not even in the slightest, had the ravenous appetite of a growing boy. He was already becoming a human skeleton. And to think he used to think Yuugi scrawny--he certainly beat the little windbag to the self-styled trophy.

Fingering that once nourished, yet uncomfortably thin aspect of his moon-pale midsection, gaze constantly knitted upon that one person he always seemed to secretly favor. The manner those horrible evenings swept along where the young billionaire was psychosexually blinded at the confrontment of his mirror before the showers he secretly wished to be spells of spattering blood unto his loathsome flesh. A naked, ethereal entity drawing against his own, consumed with such hideousness that it became almost unrecognizable and neglected as his own. Why did he suddenly seem so gruesome? Why did he even recognize his phsycial flaws let alone care about them in the first place...so out of the blue?

The delusionally bulky portions of fat plaguing his front were mercilessly tweaked in his thumb and forefinger and firmly told to vanish, but just festered...festered along the cast-iron flat of his torso like a fucking tumor, like fucking sarcoma. The growth of malignant cells reading the withering melanin like the adipose of his stature reading his self-hate of innumerable losses to Mutou. And like those whimsically colossal thighs...like the fleshy, flabby underarms...the reaping potbelly...the stocky joints...the gruesomely rotund backside...he had to get rid of it...but how?

For one of the first times he'd asked in his life--following all those years of tempering against constant hunger, downing gourmet meals only because he was finally being allowed to eat for once--why should I eat this? Why should I force down these calories, empty or not, fattening or toning? Why should I toss in these entrees and manage to come back for indigestible seconds? Why should I listen to Mokuba when I run accidental starving sprees and allow myself to be forced into settling down and grounding my molars for a meaningless hour and a half? Why, food interrupts my work, doesn't it? It's the reason I can't be perfect...

'I spent my childhood with a reasonably strong body. It's always like that for the unlucky ones. Six foot one or taller, that doesn't change the fact that I've gained nearly twice the weight of what I'd been before within not even two years...it's not normal! It's...sick...'

Just the same, he knew that he'd need to cut the generous meals to banish it from his once so fanciful form, the same one that sent the charm of chocolate boxes all sniveling in shame, left to tend to their rustic, lonely pantries. The very reason why all the board had even given the fourteen-year-old the time of day and allowed the boy to the deceive the quintuplet and overthrow its posessor...a vision to behold, such a delicate, delicate facade, and so delectably small of a physique clothed in white that grasped a glamorously gaunt torso, the only hands that ever would dare to, about three quarters to the 5'5" frame being sensuous, girly leg. The boyishly short yet leggy types that made even his male PE teacher give off heat while donning the buttock-clamping spandex that cut off just a smidgen over the curve of his buttocks. Hell, the feinted innocence to his lily-white mug had won all five of them over at first glance, the very contrast of the one or two moles that sweetly specked his whitish facial features saving the young teen about four weeks of prior persuasion. Young master Kaiba-sama knew how desperately each wed, distinguished, decorous businessman--the coppertop with the Calvin Klein glasses in his late twenties to the old fogey weilding the manchester cane--wanted to touch him.

Just hold the little seducee captive and rotate in deflowering that undoubtedly adorably tiny entrance of his. Watching the writhing, threadlike, naked form handcuffed at the purpling wrists, shuddering with a delicious lick of the chops. That pretty face of his would be mashed cheek first onto the ground, bare ass high and trampled blue-and-black, bent on quivering knees like the fallen little beast he would soon become. That so often sullen expression etched over the little boy's face would suddenly twist into pure fear, and the world would be graced with beauty at its highest. Just moving from one over to the next--such a raw, thin little tuchis--and taking him again, again, again, and AGAIN to the id's unbroken delight...

And so far from his victorious youthful years. Either way, he knew he couldn't beat Yuugi because he wasn't physically perfected. Once he'd starve himself into skeletal oblivion, only then would he gain the wit to wipe the floor with him. Only then would asceticism be hammered into his head and would allow him the kiss of loving Lady Luck.

He needed to taste the saliva of perfection again, salivate gold that glittered again as it used to...his abominating loss to that kid that took his title as a gamer of all gamers...the commemorative inscription of his town of Kaiba Seto being practically reared into the bediademed place of Kaiba majesty. And the way such a small fry could take it away so easily!

'All you have to regret is being born into the wrong age band, toots. After all, obesity was considered attractive only about, oh, twenty generations before you, am I right?'

Obesity...obesity...wasn't that 30 above average weight? He'd remembered making calculations before. Hadn't he been underweight last time he checked?

So, if he was honestly as heavy as his cerebral roommate gave the impression of him being insanely so why was it that when his head maid had interrupted one of his late afternoon, nearly epileptic fits of scarred nakedness before the mirror he'd distinctly heard a gasp shaped somewhat like a sob and the deafening clatter of china, silver platters, and his never-to-be-eaten-supper crash against ivory marble? It wasn't the disfigurement of his body--

Why, she'd seen those scars more times than he could count...each time she'd changed his clothes and dressed him in that classic, heavenly white trimmed with angelic gold...each time noticing more wounds and deeper, half-healed gashes as he stripped off his pajamas shamelessly. She'd even been bold enough to trace one or two with the heel of her hand during his early adolescence of tyranny beneath Gouzaburou's thumb. That same buttress had been the one glancing toward him soberly every cockcrow, addressing him with a tone of pure profession and managing to only brush his nude trunk as she buttoned up his uniform with such an indifferent expression. Any other servant that'd ever changed him had been unable to contain the looks of horror as they uncovered his months to years worth of nightly rapes and beatings and had either taken ways with Mr. Kaiba by the next morning or had never volunteered to do such a task ever again. It'd been one of the main reasons why she was head buttress.

But now, Melody once so often self-assured, once so familiar with his nude state...she recognized his every angular curve, memorized every one of his characteristic ticks, memorized the site to each and every mole over each and every rangy crook, she'd been the one to notice the increasing frustration in dressing him with every inch that was thrown on to his already towering form, it was her that'd observed the fade of his flesh from hearty pink to the bleached manila of a China doll...so why was it that when he'd coolly swerved back his gaze--eyes as steady as unrippling pools--and fell upon hers, he'd seen tears and a deathly pale hand clasped over her trembling mouth?

How could it be that when he'd murmured with nearly childlike eyes, "Is something wrong, Merodi-san?" golden-green orbs had expanded to the roundness of tea saucers and bulged from white, pearled sockets, narrow shoulders slackening to a point it seemed their use had been forgotten, and he'd seen a womanish form tearing off into the foyer with wails so clumsily produced, as if toads themselves had been escaping her throat? When had it occurred to him that the more bones or tendons that jutted out morbidly from his frame, the more he began to notice how repulsively fat he exactly was? Why had it suddenly gone so beyond him to appreciate his figure? Why was it that thinness seemed suddenly so unattainable?

'Seto-sama is...he's...!'

So no, of course not, she was horrified because of his obvious weight gain. That was it. She noticed how little disrespect he had for himself. Yes, that nasty weight gain that'd swept along during his fifteenth and plagued him in cackling perpetuity. The little kitchen wench had uncovered his ultimate secret of his capitalist tax-attorney flabbiness. If, by some fluke, it happened to be a result of his scrawniness, then her concern would be useless because he was driving blindly forward.

Hm. Why was it that wrists he thought were once even too thin, seemed suddenly so--

Tracing his defined, single chin, and misconstruing a soft double to be present, the following week in horror to uncover a flabby third, and the next an ever terrifying fourth...

'Throw away the scales! Throw away the scales! We can't allow it--!'

--thick? How had his weight stayed the same, yet his reflection had hot-air ballooned at midsection like a stumpy fun-house mirror?

"Sixty five," he'd spent hours gazing lifelessly down at the milky, naked hems of his toes in wondrous confusion, muttering again and again as he'd stood on that ever milkier balance, "sixty five." Was he not wondrous fair anymore? The scales seemed to literally sag beneath him. His toes would curl over the scale and that alien whisper he'd hardly even recognized would return again: "sixty five."

Even when clocks hit the minute, his eyes caught it as if by fate his eyes had had a predetermined encounter with the taunting numerals. No. This wasn't right. It couldn't be.

"...Sixty four."

That seemed a bit more desirable, a bit more trim. But just a tad bit more could never hurt, right?

"Sixty one."

An awful lot. He was even beginning to notice the furthered protrusion of sinew through flesh; the faint tupac formed over his stomach had shriveled and mashed into two knots just above viciously bulging hips. But not up to par on his expectations. Just for justification, he'd lose the kilo he'd missed to have a constant frame...

"Fifty eight--"

More mangled tendons, more shafts of bone were distended from the soles of his curling feet while his eyes were much too blind to notice it...but they'd narrowed and:

"Fifty seven...?!"

Things were moving too slowly. They'd need speeding up, because he absolutely needed that full guarantee he'd see it continue going down--

'By any means necesarry.'

Goddamit...! Why did mere aesthetic have to maneuver him to such a nadir...damn it all! Why did he even care?! He couldn't even sit down to eat a meal anymore without visions of his own dystopia embarking and crashing against the shore of his mind with incurably ill soldiers, unpreserved, larvae-infested rations, and an odor of vomit--all pervasive, unextinguishable, cheesy.

'Is it so hard to conceive, my little elephant? Easy enough: JUST DON'T EAT ANYMORE.'

One thing was certain of it all: without those scales, the morning, post-lunchtime (although calling it this made no sense, seeing as he never actually ate lunch), and evening inspections, unable to see whether he was a living creature with the decrease of the number or a despot with the dormance or increase of it, he was absolutely nothing. Padlocking himself inside the restroom for weight check and purging was not uncommon, and on days he thought no employees were wandering about tending to house-keeping, a dash about the mansion of squeezing door knob to door knob as a casual exercise only meant he'd been one or two ounces over expectations. He'd been taking it a step too far, he'd found out, soon confronted by a trembling Melody.

"Merodi-san, is there something you'd need to discuss with me?"

"Oh, of course not, Kaiba-sama. You've just seemed somewhat...distant. This is all I'm concerned for."

"You're imagining things."

"Perhaps. But, if I may ask, is there possibly something you'd need to discuss with me?"

"What...?"

"Your eating patterns--they've seemed...disproportionate, if you will..."

"...!!!"

"When I say this like I do, I only seek out your best interest, Kaiba-sama."

"Make it your best interest to shut up from here on in if you'd like to keep your job...!"

"Y--yes, Kaiba-sama."

Melody dressed him up so somberly now--as if his mere nudeness could've ravished her youthfulness as brutally as Gouzaburou himself that evening--nerves rattling and much too petrified to even graze a subtle fingertip against the few stitches of his bloated ribs, most veiled with flesh, others clear as crystal over his wasted upper-half. She wondered so intensely how he couldn't see it. Skeletal yet astonishingly strong. Anyone with non-psychopathic eyes could see he was still somewhat healthy--in a peak condition very few anorexics could ever hope to maintain with their illness--yet maddeningly thin...looking at it long enough could drive someone to an even more severe fate.

'Speed it up, speed it up, m'boy. If your hunger can't pay the toll, then your sweat, your blood, your waste, your urine, and your tears will. So run...

...Run...

...Run, child--run, run, run, until it all goes away.'

And run he did. Everything he did was encircled about that physically taxing morning, midday, and evening gallop up and down the stairwell, no less than fifty times about. And if he were hesitate to just take a single breath amid an interval, so help him God--he would sprint the fifty all over again, insomnia blighting him if he weren't to carry out each and every dash along each and every last rung like a breeding case of OCD. He didn't even ride his limousine to school or work anymore. Instead, despite the confusion that came from his chauffer, he raced against the automobiles that darted past him and found himself winning for the most part.

All things that are often healthy and mistakenly taken in excess can eventually be harmful, of course. The head-honcho of KaibaCorp would've obviously been aware of this. But whether or not he was healthy didn't really bother him, he just wanted to release every last ounce of excess that sullied his willowy, enchanting form by also doing it all in excess--whether it was through retching bouts of bile or blood, laxative- or diuretic-overdoses, raves of exercise, heavy perspiration or even heavier urination, intoxicating dehydration that rattled his every last nerve with a natural buzz, or through his ever darling self-induced starvation. Little did he realize, the invented excess weight was not only canceled out by the very real exercise, but it was ravaging his already lean frame.

Sipping the needless pints of H2O even as his bones clinged, clanged, and clattered against one another with fatigue while a sweat-slicked tank top slung from his creaking frame, the material rippling with each gory cough that managed to heave past that awful lump in his throat. His neck, practically a needlecraft of bulging arteries over the other and the guttural cry inward being in vain, denied of any oxygen to grant him a lungful and the struggle for breath being nearly asthmatic. The silhouette beneath the jersey was dark and ominously ridged with black, shrouded knobs of malnutrition, every mushrooming pore flooded by its own typhoon.

He was training to a point it where it was as good as alcoholic. The three hour all-out sprints were leading him to a point where he gagged on vomit even on unhurried walks through KaibaCorp, where the patella he watched jut in and out from the non-existent, leathery skin of his knee cap was left thumping with pain, where the tattered soles of his sneakers were peeling away from the uppers and absent-mindedly un-replaced.

Every strike of dawn--never a second past 5 AM--a craned, brunet head, stringy and saturated with sweat would be at the Domino parkside, doubled over and sometimes even producing terrible retching noises of dry vomiting while one bony hand grasped the cinder railing of the cement stairway. Glimmering strands of adhesive bile would skim along his lower lip and splatter the asphalt as a bubbling puddle of spit, his every nerve flaming in exhaustion. At times, he'd become flustered with last night's weight-check, and because of it, would force four skeletal digits past his jaws and pry out every bacteria, every microbe, every ball of chewing gum swallowed in hopes to cover any rank breath from his intestines. Never solid food. Now and then, laxatives and diuretics would only deliver half of what he'd expected into his sewage system, and crude as it was, rectum stinging, stained and all, he'd impale it over his entire hand, writhe his knuckles around, and the bowel movement would drag on to his contentment. He was pushing what was left of his body to a breaking point. At the rate he was moving at, he might as well toss out a liver or crap out a kidney. Either way, he wouldn't mind if he shitted out a few vitals as long as he saw his weight go down the next morning.

...And while the bleeding fingers of ruby-red and vaporous white streaked the morning sky, a jogger's backside would confront any pedestrian who dared approach or even take a joyride at such an ungodly hour, eventually startling them off by the first tracks of bulging backbone more than faintly traceable through the sagging, less thin material of the jogger's running uniform. Then it would be found...that this scraggily, gangly boy of roughly sixteen, only a knot of bones and cloth, was once Kaiba Seto.

Something his very mother would deny was her own son...

He smirked. 'Hn. At least I can beat Yuugi in something.'

So this was the result, was it? A trickle of water spilled coaxingly onto the sink's corroded, cinder drain, and Seto felt his throat tauten as a sallow thumb was flourished to a temple concealed in wispy hair. He hated watching his reflection…it was so difficult to gaze directly into those bug-like, insipid, little eyeballs distended through flimsy eyelids and bulging brows. Regardless, he looked up again.

A little side show freak of nature captured in the windswept looking glass…a hunger strike gone absolutely haywire--abnormal leanness suppressed through ocular illusion…color-coding and an oversized uniform that once had suited him to a "T"…his all-time favorite: layers. Dressing in two pair of pants could bulk up his waist to manifest even his old size sometimes. He hated hiding it, but he knew taking the matter casually would cause someone to uncover his sick secret.

Going against about an Encyclopedia's worth of his ethics, he steadily slithered up the hem of his school uniform jacket upward along his abdomen, and surveyed the tiny, white range of pure flesh over bone and about a paper-thin layer of muscle. He could count the few tooths of his spine distended through his stomach, even...

Immediately too horror-struck to maintain his stare, he quickly smoothed out the swell of his top with a wavering, bony palm, and heaved in a deep sigh.

Yes, he'd certainly guaranteed it--he would be fucked if that ineffectual excuse for a public servant told the class to have a pool day. Damn Mr. Kurita.

Seto's body slid down to the ground, back leaned against frigid linoleum. His eyes meandered off elsewhere…a sudden, unsavory interest in the vividness of fluorescent lighting emanated from the ceiling.

'Whatever. It doesn't matter if they see me with these shapeless rags off my pathetic excuse for a body…at least they'll know it then. I'll no longer be the walking enigma…I've already gained the reputation of it for years, anyway. I'll be uncovered as the sickening, hellish president of Kaiba Corporation…ha. They were bound to figure it out eventually. I shouldn't sulk. I was prone to it, right? I was the one who didn't follow the doctor's orders, huh? I was the one who starved themselves into the anorexia nervosa vicinity, no? Of course I know I'm disgusting. Naturally I know I shouldn't be the way I am.'

The brunet brushed back several strands of desiccated, flimsy hair from his lashes, and his gaze returned once again toward the same plane he'd been contemplating earlier. The teen staggered to his feet again, treaded off, and settled down onto a bench facing directly toward the wooden compartment, which contained his PE attire. He offered the clothing a rather peculiar, wistful glance.

Torn between indecision of whether his class was holding a session of swimming or track, Seto figured it would be moronic to make an assumption and change on the spot. He'd just wait until Yuugi, whatever one of his groupies, or whichever next sideshow freak entered the locker room and find out from their own loud outbursts of dismay…

'The sensation gives you a balance to life that relaxes the nerves--instead of warning you not to break temptation and binge before you collapse--that you've been actually doing something as it should be for once…you've been using your body for the right reasons. You suddenly notice, 'I have better self-discipline than everyone else. See, I'm thinner than everybody originally wanted me to be…so, why should I bother stopping? I mean, it couldn't hurt to shake off another twenty kilos--parsee. Hey, world! I'm thinner than you ever wanted me to be. So, I'm going to keep laughing and smiling and I'll even malnourish myself if I have to, dreaming the pain as only your deliberate adversity--a device of hunger from my weakness put over my head to tempt me into eating so I can be strained down to everybody else's pathetic level, become part of your universal group of needless slaves, and fall beneath your stratum! It'll always be the reason I'm stronger, more resilient, and more healthy than you'll ever be.' It comes to the point that you're blowing dry, inward raspberries with your fat, dehydrated tongue at all who may be against it. The point where you're forced to stand over others, for the opportune reason that if you do sit down, the hinged little wishbone of a pelvis you've got has no ass attached to its back.'

Footsteps…were they footsteps? Or was it only a specter produced out of his own mad longing for someone to finally appear?

'The paranoia that forms from your constant isolation and caution with the disorder causes distrust between you and what may have been your friends. When people tell you to gain weight, you take it as a threat or jealousy. For many, they may see it as that party's jealousy of their thinness, while others may even see it as a hearing from their so-called gods. Either one is stupid enough to me. But before you can take time to notice it…through all those hunger strikes and the little eight-mile runs you do in private that leave you breathless for hours on end…the undertow clutches you beneath the surface of atmosphere, and you're winded. You can't reach the surface anymore. You're not waving anymore with the tide--you're drowning underneath it.'

Seto at long last surrendered to his world-weariness, and brandished jaded hands to his school slippers, deciding that whichever activity they were going to end up doing, he'd have to change his shoes either way. Both creamy blue and white fabricated shoes were lobbed into his cubbyhole with a clunk, and he began exchanging socks.

'Anorexia can really drive you into lunacy if every fiber doesn't follow out perfectly. He promises you friends; good health; the whole fucking package, basically. But I'm not in it for any of those…I could care less really, about my cholesterol or my heart condition, actually. I'm in it for the sense of satisfaction. Self-satisfaction. The sanctuary with who you've become…'

His heart began throbbing now, and a taut sensation formed in the pit of his stomach. He really was concerned if they were, in fact, having pool…despite the fact that Seto usually viewed anyone else's opinion as a zero compared to his inference, he didn't want everyone to see Kaiba Seto at his worst. Even if he did threaten Kurita and easily manage to have class take course by his own means, which he could very well do, he was also well aware of the suspicion that would be left behind due to his objection in the first place. After all, he'd always upheld a good reputation at Domino.

'It started out by mistake. But soon…it became a way of life for me. Because the way society is made out to be these days, you can easily observe an explicit chat between petty, stupid humans mentioning how they need to go on the salt-free diet that'll never happen, and the guilt trips that plague your mind as you eavesdrop. 'Am I doing this right?' 'But of course you are! You eat only about a wisp of what they do, and your waist is about half the width of their thigh.' 'Feh! Don't be delusional, little Orson. Dieting like that gives fatties like you the chance to become conscientious for once, to be finally redeemed from your repulsive ways--' 'Aren't you already watching your weight?' 'Ahh, but that's not enough. You'll have to cut your nutritional regime in about half to get results. Low-calorie, sugarless, fat-free, carb-free, and salt-free now, my fleshy friend…' 'It's inhuman, but I guess it sounds sensible if you're desperate to lose weight.' 'And in your case…we can definitely make it beyond sensible.''

'I know it's slow suicide. But if there would be any remote way I'd choose to die, it would be through illness. Where I would suffer one or two years--because of that illness. I would have the beauty sucked out of my body, just to fulfill the illusion of hypothetical perfection. Not because I wanted to be thin to a point of hospitalization, but because I wanted to show resistance to mortality. Where my own tenaciousness would work against me. Like Gouzaburou said the first night he'd deflowered me, 'A pretty little death for a pretty little boy.' The control I once thought I had over the only changeable aspect to my life would choke every atom of oxygen satiating my vitals, and I'd float away, become one with...no. I'm being selfish. I can't think like that. I still have to protect my little brother...I can't think like that...'

The trundle of various feet moving at once echoed directly outside the boy's locker room; a muffled pair in particular which caught his prompt notice.

"Awright! We got track for today--!"

"I thought you liked pool, Jounouchi…?"

"S'all right, but the chlorine really messes with my hair…"

Seto's expression knotted into an immediate scowl at hearing that recognizable voice, taking an oath to himself that he would wipe down the floor with Katsuya and that rumpled tangle of blond hair. He sighed with great relief, noticing the lumbering sound of the old locker room door being heaved open by numerous struggling undergraduates, others scuffling into the locker room in pursuit of them. The russet-haired teen released a deep growl, while snatching his PE clothing, and making a quick trip to the bathroom to change.

"Kaiba? What're you doin' here so damn early?"

Seto could really care less who had the nerve or the stupidity enough to yell out such a dense question to much less, the cold-hearted president of Kaiba Corporation, so he let the Neanderthal off with a tiny retort. "That's none of your concern."

"Geez, just asking--"

"Yeah, whatever. Out of the way, punk."

But as he sauntered off toward the stalls, he couldn't help but also see the troubled expression on Jounouchi's face as the amber-eyed wretch momentarily glimpsed back toward him.

'What'd I already tell you last night, Jounouchi? Don't pity me, pup.'

XXX

'What's wrong with Kaiba-kun--? Is he sick? Is this what Jounouchi-kun was hinting at yesterday morning…?'

Together Yuugi, Jounouchi, and Ryou toddled out onto track grounds along with their less than pleased classmates, the erratic-haired, stunted adolescent detecting the fact that the teen who usually soared over the remainder of the freshmen Domino high municipal-looked unwell, decrepit…far too fatigued to tidy up his posture and keep his chin lifted as he usually did.

Apart from that, over the lattice of differently shaped and colored limbs kept bare by participants dressed in the required track shorts, Kaiba's generally attractive, soft-whitish, agile legs had been reduced to a matter nearly as brittle as straw; which stood out tremendously from the bunch. Not to mention his arms were the same as well…his entire body, for that matter. His clothing safely hid most of it--the PE attire was so gargantuan on him, it hung like a formless tablecloth over his paltry frame--but other students were beginning to stare out of alarm.

Mr. Kurita rounded up the last of the dawdling students, clutching his attendance booklet, and wearing another one of his conventional, humdrum frowns of disapproval.

A cluster of prattling girls discussed the significant affair of which boy had the longest, most attractive legs, while others merely exchanged remarks on how "stubby" they looked in their female sprinter shorts (more like underwear, if you ask me). Others were too caught up in humorous debate of how ludicrous the PE instructor's haircut was. The male portion of the class contrasted bicep-sizes, or explicitly commented on the ladies, when Mr. Kurita angrily interrupted the outbreak of conversation, and began taking usual tally of the number of students present.

"Everyone just shut up while I take attendance, and shout out 'present' when I call your name."

Seto couldn't help but notice he was receiving several strange glimpses from his fellow contemporaries. The CEO used to gather quite a few starry-eyed peeks from girls during personal fitness or common school hours; and he'd adapted to overhearing trill, trifling tones hissing to one another, "God, he's got such an awesome pair of legs--!" or "Why does he have to be such a grouch? I mean, with good looks like that…" or "His skin always looks so soft and healthy," and the list went on. He never really cared for any of them, and now that he was picking up on distressed, pensive glances, it didn't really change his position on the affair. Yes, it was a luxury to have girls comment on his undeniably tangible beauty, but it wasn't really of any value to him either way.

The concentration of the female crowd shifted to Bakura, as it usually did with each period he shared with the exchange student. This natural phenomenon had a tendency to anger the gentlemen of their group, though Kaiba could really care less, as he'd never had interest in capturing a female's attention. Above and beyond, throughout the entire course of his lifetime, he'd never been fascinated by a woman's company in anyway. A gorgeous and even busty girl wasn't really much of a turn-on for him, as the events of last evening would justify that very well.

"Kaiba--?" The voice began faltering, and the flat-capped brute lowered his clipboard in marvel of what he took in after gazing up. "Eh, kid? Where've you been the last three months?"

His contemptuous stare hardened yet. "That's for me to know and for you not to question. That is, unless you don't value your career or degree as a physical education teacher, I have an arrangement that can be personally made..."

The class grew hushed, some disgusted by Seto-sama taking full advantage of his place as practically the legal owner of Domino City, while others, amused by the frightened expression that appeared on Kurita's mug once the reply had been executed. Either way, the president of KaibaCorp wouldn't have it.

XXX

...Just there for the taking. Wasn't it meant to be the other way around? He'd been the one who'd been insane enough to ask the schmuck to pocket another broken piece of his innocence--again. Even if the boy was slightly cute, the guy was hardly a noble's concubine.

Then again, he had spent most of his childhood living practically as one, so...

For a small eternity of silence, the rustle of the schoolboy's uniform along a set of strapping shoulders told Kaiba Seto that he'd been turned down. Amber turned to him almost…shyly?

"No, Kaiba--ya don't understand how it works."

His fists kept easing as the fairer of the two shook his generously shaggy head of moppy gold. Despite the pain in his throat, he refused to let his own say-so to be left unheard.

"These kind a' things are 'bout commitment," the ex-Osaka big-boy-on-the-boulevard said so softly, the taller teen could've sworn golden feathers had been migrant along that wagging tongue of his. The tawny eyes he'd been so used to rivaling refused to meet his own this time. His poppy-red limbs swung in a shrug as he continued, "Love. Trust. Fidelity. Deep stuff like that. If we don't even got friendship, what makes ya think I'd be ready t' get in the sack wit' yas?"

The untidy, brassy swarm of curls slopping along Jou's ruddy temple left the other shivering. Everything'd gotten colder for a second. This boy wasn't taking orders--

The notorious frown line of his naturally heavy brow grew faint. "I don't understand, do I?" Even with the softness resurfacing to his appearance, the change didn't stay for very long.

He finally grasped the hems of Jou's undershirt and crushed against the other into a cavernous lip lock--all breathing coarsened--mouths expanding for the other's entrance. The fiery tongues of their mouths weaved as one flaming brace--the first, slightly unsavory and just as nastily dry as the badland their vocal ammunition had been dispatched over, the other, flogging with its significant other's pined moisture and jaunty in delivery--pale and reddish cheek ebbing or flowing with the constant flux of their oral festivities along the heaving lengths of the pulp within their partner's mouth.

…The brunet wasn't nearly as nimble with his schnozz as he'd been in the company of Jou just hours before…he couldn't've made out with many boys in his day--either he'd been taken for a ride, or the kid caught on fast.

Kaiba's tongue, as much as its texture had him thinking of hardware sandpaper, was noticeably long, Jounouchi happened to notice while reddening in the face, not to mention quite adept in what its bearer was demanding it to do. Scrapping past incisors, lacing past the bile of the fallow flesh beneath his mate's adrenaline-ridden tongue, scouring so gracefully over every notched pane of tender tissue past the bounds of his lips, and probing every twist of pinkish gum or sleight of teeth.

The blond's oral caresses, however, struck its brisk chords backside to the CEO's front teeth, heaving a lulled pathway along the bony composition back and forth.

They relished one another's flesh, until the embedding of mouths pressed together harder yet with a swish of wet reddish-pink and a swirl and dip of their randomized dance. One's lip atop the other's, as the fusion of mouths began to slowly chill to chaste, the two merely exhaled searing, nearing breath against the other's stiffening mouths, a turn-by-turn of the withered white-rose petals of Seto's lips expanding over Jounou's cherry, voluptuous ones tempting prideful Jounouchi to reclaim the stolen property, leading the KaibaCorp president to maliciously pinch it back--going on until the pattern braked to silence.  
The repetitive process continued until only pants issued from their unsettled nostrils, where the pair's ruddy mouths parted chastely once again, the fists clamped onto the other's hair releasing the back of the other boy's head.

The taller teen allowed one breath to escape him prior to nestling his temple-full of gingery hair against Katsuya's garish, honey-colored one and began to grow heavy-lidded. The whitish glow of the moon past the drapery did not lift the power of his somewhat drunken expression, Jounouchi noticed. The nightlight played upon alabaster skin, drawing the dreary depth of his bulging cheekbones to a skeleton-manifesting state beneath the white-hot brilliance.  
He looked so frail and even sad…as if he could collapse then and there…

_**...teru tsuki...**_

Their sweet breath continued to mingle at their hair's breadth apart, when blue collided with crimson, husking, "--Then teach me if I don't know."

_ The boy's features only hardened, strongly opposing the tremor of his insides. "What makes you think that I would keep quiet even when you raped my little brother? Either way, you're still leaving yourself vulnerable to allegation, because I would testify with living proof and have your ass arrested so fast, your reaction time wouldn't even--"_

"D'you honestly think a little twelve-year-old boy such as yourself could ever come even near of outwitting the founder of Kaiba Corporation? Awfully confident for such a little, little boy." Seto knitted his brow, clearly showing the CEO he still wished to challenge this statement. Maw expanding into a blood-curdling grin, he murmured, "First, I'd create a motive. The motive of this situation, I'd believe, would be clinical depression or schizophrenia resulting from the strain of the seminaries. Thus, self-destructive behavior would be expected from the victim--and I'd have a doctor and psychologist paid off to ensure that the physicals would say so, along with all other employees. Secondly, in the adoption field, following the 30-day home study, espousal doesn't follow the harsh parental conduct of foster care. And lastly, whatever the case may be, the law is on my side. Law enforcement could really give a damn for two sodomized minors, and if either of you may get fluky enough, at most, you'd be shipped back to that orphanage like a pair of disowned, whimpering Daschunds."

"You're disgusting! The only reason you adopted us was for--!"

"Because I needed a good fuck with a few young bodies? Because I'm a pedophile just aching to get some bedtime with a pretty little boy who knows how to keep his mouth shut?" Gouzaburou sniggered. "Maybe, but a pretty face alone doesn't satisfy me--you're an arrogant, weak, little boy full of too much pride, you know. If I gave you the options of telling me eye-to-eye that you were a worthless piece of waste to being beaten, you'd pick a beating over the other in a heartbeat. Even with your oversized ego, your high standards force you to push yourself past your own boundaries and because of that, Seto, you and I know very well that a preteen of your recent health collapse just at the end of your move into adolescence...severe sleep deprivation...isolation...and depression...--well, let's just say you won't be able to put up a good fight anymore. At least, not until either of us is put out of our misery."

"YOU'RE WRONG! You're wrong...! Wrong..."

"Am I?"

Seto felt a weathered palm slink to the jet-black material of his trousers,--stomach clenching--viciously clutch the nestled flesh of between the boy's thighs, slither up to his throbbing pelvis and wander the length of his nearly angular hips, sashay along his pulsing abdomen and along the crests of his floating ribs, and felt the fingertips dance elegantly along the small of his chest in desire of reaching the destination of his top collar button. One forearm was seized and twisted roughly behind the twelve-year-old, making the least struggle only a waste of energy and more of a pleasure to Gouzaburou feeling the boy writhe within his maniacal grasp.

"LET GO OF ME--!" he hissed through the curl of his upper lip.  
  
"I told you, Kaiba. S'not like that--!"

"Take off your shirt," he rasped, eyes blandly-traced and the stain of puce over his typically feathery lower lids amplified by the ashy skin tone and silvery flow of moonlight.

Acknowledging the worst to come with the fleeting glimpse toward the material that hung from the somewhat sociopathic boy's torso like a flag from a pole on an unwindy day, Jou retreated in their tango of indecision. He wasn't about to allow any unpleasant images to meet him eye-to-eye.

Jou was anything but a heavy guy and he knew, but this new frighteningly thin Kaiba had to weigh at least twenty pounds less than him and was about four inches taller and just inviting a strip session...what tha' fuck was he on...!? What made the guy think in any remote way that he, Jounouchi Katsuya of all people, would be interested in seeing how a living carcass looked like?

There was something wrong with him...he seemed batty enough, but--he had some morbid interest for one reason or another--

_ Succeeding in his first task, his hand shifted on to unfasten the second, the third, the fourth...this process continuing until the little one's snowy naval and the taut throbbing muscle surrounding it was exposed, along with the raised, glimmering hilt of the schoolboy's belt buckle._

"I had to forgo that luscious, healthy spark to your looks in order to put you in your place, but I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. Force you to study and fill that unused brain of yours with knowledge to develop you into my heir, and do it to a point that you'd become shiftless bones just for the taking. To tell you the truth, I loved those girly little curves you had to your body, however, if you still refuse, I can give you a choice, and keep my options open. After all, victims with a bit more flesh to their frame--like that little brother of yours--are always good fun..."

"I TOLD YOU TO LET GO OF ME, YOU DISGUSTING--!" Again, he wriggled, trying with all he was worth to break his arms free from the man's vice-like grip, only this time, Gouzaburou's throttlehold strengthened, completely crushing his upper limb, and wrenching back so that a stomach-turning crack was heard…SNAP. The link between his carpals and ulna had been torn apart from the pressure forced on his wrist, leaving a nasty, settling bruise and unbearable paroxysms of pain.

He shuddered and winced…but he wouldn't scream…he wouldn't let himself just part his lips and wail the pathetic war cry…not in front of this manhandling bastard…not the likes of him…

"So, what is it? By midnight, you'll already be thirteen. Such a special birthday, indeed." While his chin was nestled onto the youngster's shoulder, the tip of his nose dared to delve into the sweet fragrances of his child's handsome shock of russet hair and sniff ever so lightly--peppermint, ginger, cinnamon--left so thrilled, still. His freed hand reached up and began fondling the definition of the lad's moony cheekbone and to his pleasure, could feel Seto's jaw twitching through the vaguely sloping, nimble chasm of the seventh-grader's cheek his forefinger teased. "…D'you think you can cum for me--son?"

His stomach muscles tamped firmly for a second time, so firmly, that spells of neon-colored lights began to smother his eyeshot and devastate his limp metabolism. He couldn't get worked up like this or he would black out…their pediatrician'd said himself, he'd a weak heart after all-- "Stop it…enough!"  


_**...toyomu nari.**_


End file.
